There is nothing on earth so scrumptious as having a grand burst of passion all to yourself." She drew in her breath like one in pain.

"My God!" she said, "to see it come and go! the white and the red! the tugging at the hair! the tears and the oaths, and the cries and the curses! To know that you have the man's heart-strings stretched on your violin, and that with one dash of your bow, one tiniest twist of a peg, you can make him shriek!" "Sepia!" said Hesper, "I think Darwin must be right, and some of us at least are come from--" "Tiger-cats?
or perhaps the Tasmanian devil ?" suggested Sepia, with one of her scornful half-laughs.
But the same instant she turned white as death, and sat softly down on the nearest chair.
"Good Heavens, Sepia! what is the matter?
I did not mean it," said Hesper, remorsefully, thinking she had wounded her, and that she had broken down in the attempt to conceal the pain.
"It's not that, Hesper, dear.

Nothing you could say would hurt me," replied Sepia, drawing breath sharply.

"It's a pain that comes sometimes--a sort of picture drawn in pains--something I saw once." "A picture ?" "Oh! well!--picture, or what you will!--Where's the difference, once it's gone and done with?
Yet it will get the better of me now and then for a moment! Some day, when you are married, and a little more used to men and their ways, I will tell you.

My little cousin is much too innocent now." "But you have not been married, Sepia! What should you know about disgraceful things ?" "I will tell you when you are married, and not until then, Hesper.
There's a bribe to make you a good child, and do as you must--that is, as your father and mother and Mr.Redmain would have you!" While they talked, Godfrey, now seen, now vanishing, had become a speck in the distance.