The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: old Mrs. Hawes, who, since her eldest daughter had
deserted her, barely had the strength to cook her own
meals while Ally picked up her living as a seamstress.
Mr. Royall's was the only house where the young man
could have been offered a decent hospitality. There
had been nothing, therefore, in the outward course of
events to raise in Charity's breast the hopes with
which it trembled. But beneath the visible incidents
resulting from Lucius Harney's arrival there ran an
undercurrent as mysterious and potent as the influence
that makes the forest break into leaf before the ice is
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