The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: think, by adopting a certain upright posture in her chair, and a certain
tone when she inquired if we wished a second help of the pudding. After
thirty-five years of boarders and butchers, life held no secrets or
surprises for her; she was a mature, lone, disenchanted, able lady, and
even her silence was like an arm of the law.
An all too brief conversation, nipped by Mrs. Trevise at a stage even
earlier than the bud, revealed to me that perhaps my fellow-boarders
would have been glad to ask me questions, too.
It was the male honeymooner who addressed me. "Did I understand you to
say, sir, that Mr. Mayrant had received a bruise over his left eye?"
"Daphne!" called out Mrs. Trevise, "Mr. Henderson will take an orange."
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