E. Nesbit

“ But don’t you make any mistake, my girl. This is a real marriage certificate. You’re his wife right enough. Now will you come home with me and do as I tell you? Or will you go with him and share his bed and board? You’re his wife—he can do what he likes with you. Kiss you, put his fat arms round you. . . .”
“I don’t believe it,” said Sandra. But she did. She sat down trembling on the yellow wooden seat in the waiting room.
“Well—will you go with him?”
“No,” said Sandra.
“Then sit still.” He walked to the door, hustling the organist before him. ”

“ His solicitor says that he did not at once seek to cancel the marriage, because he considered that a couple of hundred a year was well spent in guarding the girl from fortune-hunters during her impressionable minority. There is no security against being married for mercenary motives so strong as the fact that you are already married, and that your husband still lives. But Death came quickly and quietly, and if her grandfather meant to help Sandra at long last, when she had been schooled enough by the humiliation of her bondage, he never lived to do it. ”

“ She ought to go to London—to take a concert hall—not a vulgar theatre—and just dance for the elect, who would watch her with reverent wonder, and pay well for the privilege.
“But my grandfather would never agree,” the girl told him one day after a music lesson.
“I would help you,” he said; “all artists are of one brotherhood and bound to help each other. Your grandfather has no right to prevent you from giving your wonderful gift to the world. You ought to take the matter into your own hands.”
This meant run away.
When Sandra understood, “He’d fetch me hack,” she said dismally. ”

“ It was then that Sandra, quite calmly and very affectionately, explained what she meant to do. All the nurse’s objections, and they were many, were swept away with a quiet firmness that did not so much defy opposition as ignore it.
“We are going at once,” the girl repeated, “you and I and Denny. You must go down and tell him to-morrow morning. We are going to London, and I am going to make a fortune by dancing. That man was right about one thing. I can dance. ”

“ And when we’ve made a lot of money I shall buy a place near here—I’d buy the Mount if I could,—and come back and live here and be good to the poor people. And you shall live in luxury, nursie-love, and so shall Denny. But we’ll make a name for ourselves first. ”

“ I think p’r’aps I ought to tell you, love, and if it hurts your pride I’ll wish I’d bitten my tongue out first. I’m your own mother’s own cousin! There!”
It was pale after the light of rosy romance, but that it was something, warm kisses attested.
“How lovely! And I’ve got someone that really belongs to me. And it’s you. ”