‘Why, what can a man do when he takes to adoring one of you mermaids? He only neglects his work and runs up… — George Eliot

It is true that an observer, under that softening influence of the fine arts which makes other people's hardships picturesque, might have been delighted with this homestead called Freeman's End.

What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?

‘I suppose a woman is never in love with any one she has always known— ever since she can remember; as a man often is. It is always some new fellow who strikes a girl.’