"I thought you were keen to be gone." "Is it likely ?" he asked with playful tenderness, "that I should be anxious to shorten the time in which you are mine and not Robin Drummond's ?" They were alone, and she turned and put her head on his shoulder.
"I shall always be yours," she said.

"And I think marriage and giving in marriage a weariness of the spirit." "Not really, Nell ?" The General looked at her golden head in alarm, but already she was reproaching herself.
"Never mind, dear papa," she said.

"I didn't altogether mean it.

Poor, kind Robin! What a very ungrateful girl I am to you all!" As soon as they got back the Dowager engaged her in a whirl of shops and dressmakers, and for that the General was grateful.

He resorted to man[oe]uvres in those days to keep the newspapers out of Nelly's way that revealed to himself hitherto unsuspected depths of cunning.