"All the girls have their pictures taken in their graduating dresses with their flowers." "You looked to me as if the picture would be a great success," said Robert.

He longed to ask for one and yet did not, for a reason unexplained to himself.

He knew that this innocent, unsophisticated creature would see no reason on earth why he should not ask, and no reason why she should not grant, and on that account he felt prohibited.

That night, after he had gone, Ellen wondered why he had not asked for one of her pictures, and felt anxious lest he should have seen the nudge.
"Well," she said to herself, "if he finds any fault with anything that my mother has done, I don't want him to have one." Robert stayed a long time.

He kept thinking that he ought to go, and also that he was bored, and yet he felt a singular unwillingness to leave, possibly because of his sense that the visit was in a measure forbidden by prudence.