human
My dear Mrs. Grandon, she says, in that persuasive voice that wins even against the will,
gpt
I have been planning a pleasure for you with Mr. Grandon. You are to come down here for a day and a night next week, and we are to go to the opera; it is to be 'Lohengrin,' and you will be delighted. You are quite a German student, I hear. Now I am going to make arrangements with the professor and Gertrude.
human
Do you know, says Mrs. Latimer, when she is seated in her sister's carriage,--Mr. Latimer is to walk down town,--
gpt
I think that little Mrs. Grandon charming. She is coming to me on Tuesday, and we are to give a kind of family dinner to Gertrude. Laura's vexation made her rather unjust, and Mrs. Grandon's hair is magnificent, not really red, at all, and her manners are simply quaint and delicate. She doesn't need any training; it would be rubbing the bloom off the peach. I just wish Winnie Ascott could see her!
human
You and John and the Ascotts have rather a weakness for bread-and-milk flavoring. She _is_ very nice, certainly, and quite presentable, but one can never predict how these innocent _ingenues_ will develop. They are very delightful at eighteen, but at eight-and-twenty one sometimes wants to strangle them, as you do Marcia Grandon.
gpt
Marcia is certainly not the black sheep of the family, for she hasn't the vim and color for absolute wickedness, but a sort of burr that pricks and _sticks_ where you least desire it. Now, Laura will make an extremely stylish woman of fashion, and tall, fair Gertrude, with her languors and invalidisms, will be picturesque, but an old maid like Marcia Grandon would be simply intolerable! Let us join hands and get her married.
human
And I dare say Marcia was one of the sweet innocents,
gpt
Never, Helen, never! Why, there is a little tint of scandal that she was having a desperate escapade with a married man when her mother took her abroad. No, the two are as far apart as the poles. It is really unjust for you to suppose a resemblance.
human
I did not _quite_ infer a resemblance, but I doubt if Mrs. Floyd _can_ keep pace with her husband, and there are so many silly moths to flutter about such a man. Mrs. Grandon may turn jealous and sulky, or become indifferent and leave him to other people's entertainment and fascinations, and that Madame Lepelletier would never do. They would make such a splendid couple! Like Laura, I regret the wrecked opportunity. They seem made for each other. He no doubt married Miss St. Vincent in the flush of some chivalrous feeling, but she will always be too childish to understand such a man. There will remain just so many years between them.
gpt
And _I_ think she will grow up to a perfect wifehood. She is not yet eighteen.
human
And I cannot understand how a man having a chance to win Madame Lepelletier would not urge it to the uttermost.
gpt
Floyd Grandon is about the one level-headed man out of a thousand, he says, decisively.
human
Whether it is that he cannot be fascinated with womenkind or holds some resentment concerning the past, I am not sure, but he is able to sun himself in the dazzle of Madame Lepelletier's charms with the most perfect friendly indifference that I ever saw. If he were not, she might prove dangerous to the peace of mind of the young wife, who is simply delightful, but who doesn't know any more about love than the sweetest rosebud in the garden.
gpt
O John! now your penetration is at fault, laughs the wife;
human
Well, I said she didn't _know_ about it, and she does not. The awakening will have to come.
gpt
You don't stay with me now, she says, her voice and her small body swelling with emotion.
human
You let Jane put me to bed, and you don't tell me any stories.
gpt
But after Aunt Gertrude is married we shall stay at home, and there will be stories and stories. And you _might_ like to go to Denise, she suggests, with admirable art.
human
Briggs could drive you in the pony carriage.