It is sweet to feel that you are really and truly a woman." She buried her face in her mother's lap, sobbing.
"You think I am dreadful, I know, but I am honest, and I tell you just how I feel." Mrs.Morse was strangely sad and happy.

Her child-daughter, who was a bachelor of arts, was gone; but in her place was a woman-daughter.

The experiment had succeeded.

The strange void in Ruth's nature had been filled, and filled without danger or penalty.

This rough sailor-fellow had been the instrument, and, though Ruth did not love him, he had made her conscious of her womanhood.
"His hand trembles," Ruth was confessing, her face, for shame's sake, still buried.