John Oliver Hobbes

“ She did not seem surprised to see him, but with an indescribable movement of grace and confidence leant a little further over the gate, looked him straight in the eyes for a bewildering moment, and—looked away. The girl was, no doubt, as Provence had said in his letter, uncomfortably beautiful: attractive with a beauty which other women might or might not admire, but would at all events rather not see in a rival. ”

“ I can step from my room on to a lawn where yellow ducklings, a lame hen and some middle-aged cats gambol in imperfect amiability; beyond the lawn, through a gate, is a duck-pond—you walk a little way and behold! another gate—it is generally open—you pass through and find yourself in the poultry-yard. This yard is by no means uninstructive, and lacks but one thing to reach Nineteenth Century civilization—the Divorce Court. ”

“ My quarters might be worse, and are as comfortable as a respectable woman with an unnecessary husband, a voracious child and a barn-yard can make them. When she is not feeding the husband and stirring pap for the babe she mixes pabulum [5] for the pigs: in her leisure she does the washing and prepares food for me. What an existence! The other day I asked her if she did not think that the five wise may have lived to envy the five foolish virgins. ”