I am not taunting you.
I understand." "You can't." "I do.

I know just how you felt about that young man from the city who boarded at the hotel six years ago.

I know how you felt about Tom Merrill, who called here a few times, and then stopped, and married a girl from Boston.

I have known exactly how you have felt about all the others, and--I know about this last." Her voice sank to a whisper.
"I have had some reason," Lucy said, with a terrible eagerness of self-defence.

"I have, mother." "What ?" "One day, the first year he came, I was standing at the gate beside that flowering-almond bush, and it was all in flower, and he came past and he looked at the bush and at me, then at the bush again, and he said, 'How beautiful that is!' But, mother, he meant me." "What else ?" "You remember he called here once." "Yes, Lucy, to ask you to sing at the school entertainment." "Mother, it was for more than that.