Ethel Turner

“ He went to the filter for a glass of water, and, as it trickled, wondered in a dull, mechanical kind of way if his little dead wife thought he had been too quick in appointing Esther to her kingdom. And then, as he stood near the sofa and looked at the death-like face, he wondered with a cold chill at his heart whether Meg was going to die too, and if so would she be able to tell the same little wife that Esther received more tenderness at his hands than she had done. ”

“ That pressure, if it has been constant, has been enough to half-kill her. Chut, chut! faint indeed—I wonder she has not taken fits or gone into a decline before this."
Then a cloud of trouble came over Esther's beautiful face—she had failed again in her duty. Her husband was regarding her almost gloomily from the sofa, where the little figure lay in its crumpled muslin dress, and her heart told her these children were not receiving a mother's care at her hands.
Afterwards, when Meg was safely in bed and the excitement all over, she went up to her husband almost timidly. ”

“ Gormeston and Mrs. Gormeston and two Miss Gormestons are in the drawing-room, and I think they'll stay for ever and ever."
"Well?" said Meg.
"And the General is ill again, and Esther says she won't leave him for a second, not if Gog and Magog were down there dying to see her."
"Well?" said Meg again.
"And Father is as mad as he can be, and is having to keep them all amused himself. He's sung 'My sweetheart when a boy' and 'Mona,' and he's told them all about his horses, and now I s'pose he doesn't know what to do." ”