This journal offered its brilliant correspondent a fresher field for her genius than the mouldering cities of Europe, and Henrietta was cheered on her way by a promise from Mr.Bantling that he would soon come over to see her.

Isabel wrote to Mrs.Touchett to apologise for not presenting herself just yet in Florence, and her aunt replied characteristically enough.

Apologies, Mrs.Touchett intimated, were of no more use to her than bubbles, and she herself never dealt in such articles.

One either did the thing or one didn't, and what one "would" have done belonged to the sphere of the irrelevant, like the idea of a future life or of the origin of things.

Her letter was frank, but (a rare case with Mrs.Touchett) not so frank as it pretended.