Besides," she added, blushing yet more deeply, "it isn't a proper one to talk upon." "Well then, to change it," replied Thames, gravely, "suppose I should be obliged to leave you." Winifred looked as if she could not indulge such a supposition for a single moment.
"Surely," she said, after a pause, "you don't attach any importance to what my mother has just said.

_She_ has already forgotten it." "But _I_ never can forget it, Winny.

I will no longer be a burthen to those upon whom I have no claim, but compassion." As he said this, in a low and mournful, but firm voice, the tears gathered thickly in Winifred's dark eyelashes.
"If you are in earnest, Thames," she replied, with a look of gentle reproach, "you are very foolish; and, if in jest, very cruel.

My mother, I'm sure, didn't intend to hurt your feelings.

She loves you too well for that.