Of course she had been married too young--as all girls were.
Lately she had thought of selling off and moving to San Francisco, where she would open a boarding-house or a school for young ladies.

He could advise her, perhaps, of some good opportunity.

Her own girls were far enough advanced to assist her in teaching; one particularly, Cynthia, was quite clever, and spoke French and Spanish fluently.
As Mr.Bowers was familiar with many of these counts in the feminine American indictment of life generally, he was not perhaps greatly moved.
But in the last sentence he thought he saw an opening to return to his main object, and, looking up cautiously, said:-- "And mebbe write po'try now and then ?" To his great discomfiture, the only effect of this suggestion was to check his companion's speech for some moments and apparently throw her back into her former abstraction.
Yet, after a long pause, as they were turning into the lane, she said, as if continuing the subject:-- "I only hope that, whatever my daughters may do, they won't marry young." The yawning breaches in the Delatour gates and fences presently came in view.

They were supposed to be reinforced by half a dozen dogs, who, however, did their duty with what would seem to be the prevailing inefficiency, retiring after a single perfunctory yelp to shameless stretching, scratching, and slumber.

Their places were taken on the veranda by two negro servants, two girls respectively of eight and eleven, and a boy of fourteen, who remained silently staring.