She could never read while the sun
shone or the birds sang.
Seeing that, Ronald gave up all attempts at literature in the
daytime; when the lamps were lighted in the evening, and the fair
face of Nature was shut out, he tried again, and succeeded for
ten minutes; then Dora's eyes drooped, the white lids with their
jetty fringe closed; and with great dismay he found that over the
masterpieces of the world Dora had fallen asleep.
Two long, bright years had passed away before Ronald began to
perceive that he could educate his pretty young wife no further.
She was a strange mixture of ignorance and uncultivated poetry.
She could speak well; her voice was sweet, her accent, caught
from him, good; alone he never noticed any deficiencies, but if
he met an English friend in Florence and brought him home to
dine, then Ronald began to wish that Dora would leave off
blushing and grow less shy, that she could talk a little more,
and that he might lose all fear of her making some terrible
blunder.
The third year of their married life dawned; Dora was just
twenty, and Ronald twenty-three.
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