Should She Have Left Him? — page 140: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LAW SUPPORTS THE CHURCH. 127 tenable, not, of course, upon the fanciful grounds on which she had founded her decision, but upon the more solid facts of the case. It was useless to think that this affair could be kept from the public. Knowledge of it would creep out in some form, and perhaps create doubt, if not misapprehension, as to the real relations, but that could not be avoided any more than the occasion of all the trouble could be disposed of. It was inseparable from the complica- tion; the young people must goon as they were going, answering nothing, defending nothing, justi- fying nothing—keeping their own counsel. This was by no means the outcome Mrs. Courte. tay had expected. Her active imagination, pro- jected into the next winter’s season, saw the marital relations of her daughter the subject of unpleasant speculation at half the dinner tables, and all the teas, of her world, and she could see with what delight the matron mothers, envious because of the brilliant outcome of the Trescotte engagement at the time of the marriage, and the undoubted triumph of the Waldemar alliance, would roll the sweet morsel Over and over on every opportunity, and she winced under it. But what other course was there to pur- sue? She would not escape this gossip if Dorothy Were to separate from Trescotte. The advice of Mr. Magrane justified acquiescence in a continuance of the relation until after the Waldemar nuptials, and during the intervening time she hoped that secresy could be maintained ; indeed, she believed it could be. GOMMGIOO cS (GO)