Neith Boyce

“ Cecilia had very little vanity. She had not pictured Tom as pining away for her. It was no shock to her mind to think that he could be consoled. Her marriage had seemed to put him infinitely far off from her. She seemed to herself much older and he younger than ever. She thought wistfully of his youth, and of the naturalness of his falling in love with Bertha—a girl in the bloom and sparkle of her spring.
Yes, it was natural enough—but it ought not to happen, for all that. Tom had nothing, Bertha had nothing. It would be exactly in character for them to marry on nothing. ”

“ Even to the least vain of women the too prompt consolation of a rejected lover may be a wound, depending on the amount of interest in the rejected one. For Cecilia, a sweet and tender if faint glow of feeling had been her response to Tom's devotion. It had been a memory that in a way she loved. And now it was torn from her. But she would not admit to herself this reason for her agitation. On the grounds of reason and propriety alone she was justified in disliking the situation.
She let a week—ten days—go by without speaking to Bertha about it, and Bertha on her side was silent. ”

“ Clayber was quite as slack. She had never trained her daughters, and ever since Cecilia had assumed the authority of the head of the house Mrs. Clayber had been in the position of a secret rebel, siding with the other two. They had all wanted to enjoy themselves by any means possible; Cecilia's aim was quite different, and she had forced them largely to conform to her ideas. But she constantly suspected rebellion; she suspected them of pursuing their own foolish ends in underhand ways. She thought Bertha quite capable of falling in love with Tom and encouraging him with perfect recklessness. ”