Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story

“Was she incapable of love?” “No, it was notorious in her circle that she had loved often, but loved in vain.” “Why did she marry you?” “I think she was fatigued by my importunities. She was not very strong. But it may be that she married me out of pique. She never told me. I did not inquire.” “Yet you were very happy with her?” “While she lived, I was ideally happy.” The young woman stretched out a hand, and laid it on the clasped hands of the old man. He sat gazing into the past. She was silent for a while; and in her eyes, still fixed intently on his face, there were tears. “Grand-papa dear”--but there were tears in her voice, too. “My child, you don’t understand. If I had needed pity--” “I do understand--so well. I wasn’t pitying you, dear, I was envying you a little.” “Me?--an old man with only the remembrance of happiness?” “You, who have had happiness granted to you. That isn’t what made me cry, though. I cried because I was glad. You and I, with all this great span of years between us, and yet--so wonderfully alike! I had always thought of myself as a creature utterly apart.” “Ah, that is how all young people think of themselves. It wears off. Tell me about this wonderful resemblance of ours.” He sat attentive while she described her heart to him. But when, at the close of her confidences, she said, “So you see it’s a case of sheer heredity, grand-papa,” the word “Fiddlesticks!” would out.