I must give you your freedom whether you want it or not." She passed one hand over the other on her knee, looking at the engagement ring.

Then she took it off and presented it to me, lying in the palm of her right hand.
"Do what you like with it," she said very softly.
I took the ring and slipped it on one of the right-hand fingers.
"It would comfort me to think that you are wearing it," said I.
Then her mother came into the room and Eleanor went out.

I am thankful to say that Mrs.Faversham who is a woman only guided by sentiment when it leads to a worldly advantage, applauded the step I had taken.

As a sprightly Member of Parliament, with an assured political and social position, I had been a most desirable son-in-law.

As an obscure invalid, coughing and spitting from a bath-chair at Bournemouth (she took it for granted that I was in the last stage of consumption), I did not take the lady's fancy.
"My dear Simon," replied my lost mother-in-law, "you have behaved irreproachably.