Thomas Hardy

“ You are very foolish to treasure up his name and image as you do. Why, he has had loves before you, trust him for that, whoever he is, and you are but a temporary link in a long chain of others like you: who only have your little day as they have had theirs.'
''Tisn't true! 'tisn't true! 'tisn't true!' cried Cytherea in an agony of torture. 'He has never loved anybody else, I know--I am sure he hasn't.'
Miss Aldclyffe was as jealous as any man could have been. ”

“ Since she had loved Edward Springrove, she had linked his name with her brother Owen's in her nightly supplications to the Almighty. She wished to keep her love for him a secret, and, above all, a secret from a woman like Miss Aldclyffe; yet her conscience and the honesty of her love would not for an instant allow her to think of omitting his dear name, and so endanger the efficacy of all her previous prayers for his success by an unworthy shame now: it would be wicked of her, she thought, and a grievous wrong to him. ”

“ Cytherea entered her bedroom, and flung herself on the bed, bewildered by a whirl of thought. Only one subject was clear in her mind, and it was that, in spite of family discoveries, that day was to be the first and last of her experience as a lady's-maid. Starvation itself should not compel her to hold such a humiliating post for another instant. ”

“ Put your hair round your mamma's neck, and give me one good long kiss, and I won't talk any more in that way about your lover. After all, some young men are not so fickle as others; but even if he's the ficklest, there is consolation. The love of an inconstant man is ten times more ardent than that of a faithful man--that is, while it lasts.'
Cytherea did as she was told, to escape the punishment of further talk; flung the twining tresses of her long, rich hair over Miss Aldclyffe's shoulders as directed, and the two ceased conversing, making themselves up for sleep. ”

“ You, as the weary, weary years pass by will fade and fade--bright eyes _will_ fade--and you will perhaps then die early--true to him to your latest breath, and believing him to be true to the latest breath also; whilst he, in some gay and busy spot far away from your last quiet nook, will have married some dashing lady, and not purely oblivious of you, will long have ceased to regret you--will chat about you, as you were in long past years --will say, "Ah, little Cytherea used to tie her hair like that--poor innocent trusting thing ”

“ She wept bitterly. 'And now think how much I like you,' resumed Miss Aldclyffe, when Cytherea grew calmer. 'I shall never forget you for anybody else, as men do--never. I will be exactly as a mother to you. Now will you promise to live with me always, and always be taken care of, and never deserted?'
'I cannot. I will not be anybody's maid for another day on any consideration.'
'No, no, no. You shan't be a lady's-maid. ”

“ I thought I had at last found an artless woman who had not been sullied by a man's lips, and who had not practised or been practised upon by the arts which ruin all the truth and sweetness and goodness in us. Find a girl, if you can, whose mouth and ears have not been made a regular highway of by some man or another! ”

“ I have not told my age truly for the last twenty years till now.'
'Why haven't you?'
'I have met deceit by deceit, till I am weary of it--weary, weary --and I long to be what I shall never be again--artless and innocent, like you. But I suppose that you, too, will, prove to be not worth a thought, as every new friend does on more intimate knowledge. ”

“ Leave the admittedly notorious spots--the drawing-rooms of society--and look in the villages--leave the villages and search in the schools--and you can hardly find a girl whose heart has not been _had_--is not an old thing half worn out by some He or another! ”