It may have been merely for her amusement--time, you see, moves so slowly with such as have no necessities they must themselves supply, and recognize no duties they must perform: without those two main pillars of life, necessity and duty, how shall the temple stand, when the huge, weary Samson comes tugging at it?
The wonder is, there is not a great deal more wickedness in the world.

For listlessness and boredness and nothing-to-do-ness are the best of soils for the breeding of the worms that never stop gnawing.

Anyhow, Sepia had flashed on Tom, the tinder of Tom's heart had responded, and, any day when Sepia chose, she might blow up a wicked as well as foolish flame; nor, if it should suit her purpose, was Sepia one to hesitate in the use of the fire-fan.
All the way home, her eyes haunted him, and it is a more dreadful thing than most are aware to be haunted by anything, good or bad, except the being who is our life.

And those eyes, though not good, were beautiful.
Evil, it is true, has neither part nor lot in beauty; it is absolutely hostile to it, and will at last destroy it utterly; but the process is a long one, so long that many imagine badness and beauty vitally associable.

Tom yielded to the haunting, and it was in part the fault of those eyes that he used such hard words to his wife in the morning.
Wives have not seldom to suffer sorely for discomforts and wrongs in their husbands of which they know nothing.