I can not ask myself, I can not ask YOU," she went on, "if you're really as much at liberty as your universal generosity leads you to assume.

Oughtn't we," she asked, "to think a little of others?
Oughtn't I, at least, in loyalty--at any rate in delicacy--to think of Maggie ?" With which, intensely gentle, so as not to appear too much to teach him his duty, she explained.

"She's everything to you--she has always been.

Are you so certain that there's room in your life-- ?" "For another daughter ?--is that what you mean ?" She had not hung upon it long, but he had quickly taken her up.
He had not, however, disconcerted her.

"For another young woman--very much of her age, and whose relation to her has always been so different from what our marrying would make it.