The woman luxuriated in perfume; some heavy odour always hung about her.

Holmes, thinking of her now, fancied he felt it stifling the air, and opened the window for breath.

Patchouli or copperas,--what was the difference?
The mill and his future wife came to him together; it was scarcely his fault, if he thought of them as one, or muttered, "Damnable clog!" as he sat down to write, his cold eye growing colder.
But he did not argue the question any longer; decision had come keenly in one moment, fixed, unalterable.
If, through the long day, the starved heart of the man called feebly for its natural food, he called it a paltry weakness; or if the old thought of the quiet, pure little girl in the office below came back to him, he--he wished her well, he hoped she might succeed in her work, he would always be ready to lend her a helping hand.

So many years (he was ashamed to think how many) he had built the thought of this girl as his wife into the future, put his soul's strength into the hope, as if love and the homely duties of husband and father were what life was given for! A boyish fancy, he thought.

He had not learned then that all dreams must yield to self-reverence and self-growth.