May I come in ?" "Why, certainly, Miss Vance," he answered, still too much stupefied by her presence to realize it.
She promptly entered, and saying, with a glance at the hall chair by the door, "My maid can sit here ?" followed him to the room where he had left his wife.
Mrs.March showed herself more capable of coping with the fact.

She welcomed Miss Vance with the liking they both felt for the girl, and with the sympathy which her troubled face inspired.
"I won't tire you with excuses for coming, Mrs.March," she said, "for it was the only thing left for me to do; and I come at my aunt's suggestion." She added this as if it would help to account for her more on the conventional plane, and she had the instinctive good taste to address herself throughout to Mrs.March as much as possible, though what she had to say was mainly for March.

"I don't know how to begin--I don't know how to speak of this terrible affair.

But you know what I mean.

I feel as if I had lived a whole lifetime since it happened.