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Fennel and Rue by William Dean Howells
page 109 of 140 (77%)
commotion that followed it."

"Yes, I can imagine that," she answered. But she was yet so faithful
that she would not ask him to go on.

He continued, unasked, "I don't know just how, now, to account for its
coming into my head that it was Miss Andrews who was my unknown
correspondent. I suppose I've always unconsciously expected to meet that
girl, and Miss Andrews's hypothetical case was psychologically so
parallel--"

"Yes, yes!"

"And I've sometimes been afraid that I judged it too harshly--that it was
a mere girlish freak without any sort of serious import."

"I was sometimes afraid so, Philip. But--"

"And I don't believe now that the hypothetical case brought any
intolerable stress of conscience upon Miss Shirley, or that she fainted
from any cause but exhaustion from the general ordeal. She was still
weak from the sickness she had been through--too weak to bear the strain
of the work she had taken up. Of course, the catastrophe gave the whole
surface situation away, and I must say that those rather banal young
people behaved very humanely about it. There was nothing but interest of
the nicest kind, and, if she is going on with her career, it will be easy
enough for her to find engagements after this."

"Why shouldn't she go on?" his mother asked, with a suspicion which she
kept well out of sight.
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