I hope you won't trifle with him, and let him get the notion that he's coming on any other basis." Mrs.Leighton felt the comfort of the critical attitude far too keenly to abandon it for anything constructive.

She only said, "You know very well, Alma, that's a matter I can have nothing to do with." "Then you leave him entirely to me ?" "I hope you will regard his right to candid and open treatment." "He's had nothing but the most open and candid treatment from me, mamma.
It's you that wants to play fast and loose with him.

And, to tell you the truth, I believe he would like that a good deal better; I believe that, if there's anything he hates, it's openness and candor." Alma laughed, and put her arms round her mother, who could not help laughing a little, too.
II.
The winter did not renew for Christine and Mela the social opportunity which the spring had offered.

After the musicale at Mrs.Horn's, they both made their party-call, as Mela said, in due season; but they did not find Mrs.Horn at home, and neither she nor Miss Vance came to see them after people returned to town in the fall.

They tried to believe for a time that Mrs.Horn had not got their cards; this pretence failed them, and they fell back upon their pride, or rather Christine's pride.
Mela had little but her good-nature to avail her in any exigency, and if Mrs.Horn or Miss Vance had come to call after a year of neglect, she would have received them as amiably as if they had not lost a day in coming.