Somehow the bright beauty had gone from April afternoon and from her heart as well and the sad sweetness of remembering was as bitter as gall.

Take my handkerchief, Scarlett. Never, at any crisis of your life, have I known you to have a handkerchief.

They knew that love snatched in the face of danger and death was doubly sweet for the strange excitement that went with it.

Oh, why was he so handsomely blond, so courteously aloof, so maddeningly boring with his talk about Europe and books and music and poetry and things that interested her not at all - and yet so desirable?

You must be more gentle, dear, more sedate,' Ellen told her daughter. 'You must not interrupt gentlemen when they are speaking, even if you do think you know more about matters than they do. Gentlemen do not like forward girls.

So it was true! A pain slashed at her heart as savagely as a wild animal's fangs.

It was this feminine conspiracy which made Southern society so pleasant. Women knew that a land where men were contented, uncontradicted ans safe in possession of unpunctured vanity was likely to be a very pleasant place for women to live. So, from the cradle to the grave, women strove to make men pleased with themselves, and the satisfied men repaid lavishly with gallantry and adoration. In fact, men willingly gave ladies everything in the world except credit for having intelligence.