'But it won't do.

No, no, Monica; we must take care of little Maud some other way.' I was relieved.

We women have all an instinctive dread of second marriages, and think that no widower is quite above or below that danger; and I remember, whenever my father, which indeed was but seldom, made a visit to town or anywhere else, it was a saying of Mrs.Rusk-- 'I shan't wonder, neither need you, my dear, if he brings home a young wife with him.' So my father, with a kind look at her, and a very tender one on me, went silently to the library, as he often did about that hour.
I could not help resenting my Cousin Knollys' officious recommendation of matrimony.

Nothing I dreaded more than a step-mother.

Good Mrs.Rusk and Mary Quince, in their several ways, used to enhance, by occasional anecdotes and frequent reflections, the terrors of such an intrusion.