Status Updates From Anna of the Five Towns (The...

Henry must have been drop-dead gorgeous the way these girls passed out over him.

She was conscious only of present happiness and happy expectation. All bitterness had disappeared. At least thirty thousand Bursley folk were not going to the Isle of Man that day - their preoccupied and cheerless faces swam in a continuous stream past the cab window -- and Anna sympathized with every unit of them. Her spirit overflowed with universal compassion.

Now she saw, in a quick revelation, that it was the lovers, and not she, who had the right to scorn. She saw how miserably narrow, tepid, and trickling the stream of her life had been, and had threatened to be. Now it gushed forth warm, impetuous, and full, opening out new and delicious vistas. She lived; and she was finding the sight to see, the courage to enjoy.

A book from the Free Library lay on her lap; she could not read it. She was conscious of nothing save the quiet enchantment of the reverie. Her mind, stimulated by the emotions of the afternoon, broke the fetters of habitual self-discipline, and ranged voluptuously free over the whole field of recollection and anticipation. To remember, to hope: that was sufficient joy.