The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900 ... - Gredos

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
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partly because she was really feeling weak and giddy, and partly because she was
determined that the fact should not pass unnoticed — and was surprised when she
opened them to discover that Madam Charnock's were full of tears. A pang of acute
personal anxiety shot through her — did she really look so very ill? She had been ill so
long — but sometimes strangers saw things.
"Do you think?" she stammered, without pausing to consider her words “0h, Madam, do
you think that I am going to die?"
"No, no," said Mrs. Charnock, speaking soothingly; "you look, of course, delicate, but
delicate people, you know, live the longest, particularly when they are taken such good
care of These foolish tears of mine come for quite another reason — a very selfish
reason, which I must not trouble you about. Every one, you know, has their troubles."
"Oh," sighed Mrs. Fleetwood, "that is indeed too true" — and she turned up her pretty
pale eyes.
The other glanced at her quickly, and for a moment an expression of surprise, dashed
with something like indignation, passed over her face.
"Surely," she said, after a pause, "with the exception of your ill-health you have no
troubles? I must not, indeed," she went on more gently, "fail to sympathise with you in
what must be very trying, very painful, but still — oh, when I saw that good, kind
husband of yours carry you in, and when I saw his devotion and that of your boy, I
thought within myself that surely you must be the happiest woman alive."
Mrs. Fleetwood sat up, too much taken aback at first to speak; she had never hitherto
considered her position as anything but a melancholy one.
"You do not know my circumstances, perhaps," she said presently. "I — I made a great
mésalliance in
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marrying Mr. Fleetwood. I am a gentlewoman by birth — my family was formerly
much considered in Yorkshire. Mr. Fleetwood was not my equal, but” she added in an
apologetic tone, "I was all alone in the world, and I did not know what to do or how to