The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: XII.
A NEW ENGAGEMENT.
TEN days later Philip came into Aunt Jane's parlor, looking
excited and gloomy, with a letter in his hand. He put it down
on her table without its envelope,--a thing that always
particularly annoyed her. A letter without its envelope, she
was wont to say, was like a man without a face, or a key
without a string,--something incomplete, preposterous. As
usual, however, he strode across her prejudices, and said, "I
have something to tell you. It is a fact."
"Is it?" said Aunt Jane, curtly. "That is refreshing in these
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