Should She Have Left Him? — page 93: what you’re looking at

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

A DIPLOMATIC MOTHER. 87 It must not be thought that she gave no heed to Dorothy’s position, and that she was not saddened over her daughter's plight. But Mrs. Courtenay was not a common woman. She was like the com. mander of an army in battle coming upon the field after his troops had been engaged and had sus. tained slight reverses—like Sheridan at Cedar Creek, for instance. Does anyone suppose that, arriving on the field, that great soldier did not in one searching, sweeping glance assure himself of what had not been lost, before he addressed himself to repairing the damage inflicted by the enemy; that he did not de- tect in that rapid comprehension the possibilities of weakness in the points in the line where all seemed strong? Similarly did Mrs. Courtenay survey her field of battle. Before she began a serious discus sion of Dorothy’s position, she rapidly summed up what was not lost and what must be guarded to pre- vent being lost by the reverse sustained. She even stopped to upbraid her husband for his stupidity in not making a rigid investigation into that other mar- riage affair, and his turpitude in withholding knowl. edge of it from her. But however willing Mr. Courtenay had been to heap reproaches on his own head, or to rest meekly under those of his daughter, as he had intended, should she have re- proached him, he was not content to hear a single word of rebuke from his wife, and made that so apparent that she desisted. “Dorothy must immediately go home with us,” was her conclusion, after she had grasped and Comicloeo S C@