Book ｜North and South

a difficulty which Edith seemed to consider as one of the most formidable that could befall her in her married life

she was too careless and idle to have a very strong will of her own

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Yet had any one come with a fine house, and a fine estate, and a fine title to boot, Edith would still have clung to Captain Lennox while the temptation lasted; when it was over, it is possible she might have had little qualms of ill-concealed regret that Captain Lennox could not have united in his person everything that was desirable.

In this she was but her mother's child; who, after deliberately marrying General Shaw with no warmer feeling than respect for his character and establishment, was constantly, though quietly, bemoaning her hard lot in being united to one whom she could not love.

Helen had set her heart upon an Indian shawl.

as if she had raised herself up from her half-recumbent position

her grief, which she rather thought it was wrong to feel at all after the long hoping, and planning, and contriving they had gone through at home, before her wardrobe could be arranged so as to suit her grander circumstances, and before papa could leave his parish to come up to London, even for a few days.Now she had got to love the old nursery, though it was but a dismantled place.