"And my pretty one will write to me.
I shall reply so punctually! I don't like to leave her at Christmas; and she will give me a line of Italian, and a little French--mind her accents, though!--and she needn't attempt any of the nasty German--kshrra-kouzzra-kratz!--which her pretty lips can't do, and won't do; but only French and Italian.

Why, she learnt to speak Italian! 'La dolcezza ancor dentro me suona.' Don't you remember, and made such fun of it at first?
'Amo zoo;' 'no amo me ?' my sweet!" This was a specimen of the baby-lover talk, which is charming in its season, and maybe pleasantly cajoling to a loving woman at all times, save when she is in Dahlia's condition.

It will serve even then, or she will pass it forgivingly, as not the food she for a moment requires; but it must be purely simple in its utterance, otherwise she detects the poor chicanery, and resents the meanness of it.

She resents it with unutterable sickness of soul, for it is the language of what were to her the holiest hours of her existence, which is thus hypocritically used to blind and rock her in a cradle of deception.

If corrupt, she maybe brought to answer to it all the same, and she will do her part of the play, and babble words, and fret and pout deliciously; and the old days will seem to be revived, when both know they are dead; and she will thereby gain any advantage she is seeking.
But Dahlia's sorrow was deep: her heart was sound.