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James, Henry, 1843-1916

"The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II)"

Luna. He wanted to hear more about the girl who
lived with Olive Chancellor. Something had revived in him--an old
curiosity, an image half effaced--when he learned that she had come back
to America. He had taken a wrong impression from what Mrs. Luna said,
nearly a year before, about her sister's visit to Europe; he had
supposed it was to be a long absence, that Miss Chancellor wanted
perhaps to get the little prophetess away from her parents, possibly
even away from some amorous entanglement. Then, no doubt, they wanted to
study up the woman-question with the facilities that Europe would offer;
he didn't know much about Europe, but he had an idea that it was a great
place for facilities. His knowledge of Miss Chancellor's departure,
accompanied by her young companion, had checked at the time, on Ransom's
part, a certain habit of idle but none the less entertaining retrospect.
His life, on the whole, had not been rich in episode, and that little
chapter of his visit to his queer, clever, capricious cousin, with his
evening at Miss Birdseye's, and his glimpse, repeated on the morrow, of
the strange, beautiful, ridiculous, red-haired young _improvisatrice_,
unrolled itself in his memory like a page of interesting fiction.


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