If she has memories, they are sure to be sad and sacred ones; if she has not, that perhaps is still sadder.

We agreed, however, when the evening was over, that Dr.La Touche was probably the love of her youth--unless, indeed, he was simply an old friend, and the degree of Salemina's attachment had been exaggerated; something that is very likely to happen in the gossip of a New England town, where they always incline to underestimate the feeling of the man, and overrate that of the woman, in any love affair.

'I guess she'd take him if she could get him' is the spoken or unspoken attitude of the public in rural or provincial New England.
The professor is grave, but very genial when he fully recalls the fact that he is in company, and has not, like the Trappist monks, taken vows of silence.

Francesca behaved beautifully, on the whole, and made no embarrassing speeches, although she was in her gayest humour.

Salemina blushed a little when the young sinner dragged into the conversation the remark that, undoubtedly, from the beginning of the sixth century to the end of the eighth, Ireland was the University of Europe, just as Greece was in the late days of the Roman Republic, and asked our guest when Ireland ceased to be known as 'Insula sanctorum et doctorum,' the island of saints and scholars.
We had seen her go into Salemina's bedroom, and knew perfectly well that she had consulted the Peabody notebook, lying open on the desk; but the professor looked as surprised as if he had heard a pretty paroquet quote Gibbon.