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Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928

"The Woodlanders"


"It is sure to be all right, I trust?" she resumed, in uneasy
accents. "What did my father say the solicitor had told him?"
"Oh--that all is sure enough. The case is so clear--nothing could
be clearer. But the legal part is not yet quite done and
finished, as is natural."
"Oh no--of course not," she said, sunk in meek thought. "But
father said it was ALMOST--did he not? Do you know anything about
the new law that makes these things so easy?"
"Nothing--except the general fact that it enables ill-assorted
husbands and wives to part in a way they could not formerly do
without an Act of Parliament."
"Have you to sign a paper, or swear anything? Is it something like
that?"
"Yes, I believe so."
"How long has it been introduced?"
"About six months or a year, the lawyer said, I think."
To hear these two poor Arcadian innocents talk of imperial law
would have made a humane person weep who should have known what a
dangerous structure they were building up on their supposed
knowledge.


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