Matters went on in this way until
it was time for the grand _coup_.
The succeeding-particulars I have from the lips of Feodora herself.
When that horrid Bowstr first came to the house Feodora thought he was
rather impudent, but said, little about it to her mother--not desiring
to have her back broken. She merely avoided him as much as she dared,
he was so frightfully ugly. But she managed to endure him until he
took to waylaying her on the highway, hanging about her all day,
interfering with the customers, and walking home with her at night.
Then her dislike deepened into disgust; and but for apprehensions not
wholly unconnected with a certain crutch, she would have sent him
about his business in short order. More than a thousand million times
she told him to be off and leave her alone, but men are such
fools--particularly this one.
What made Bowstr exceptionally disagreeable was his shameless habit of
making fun of Feodora's mother, whom he declared crazy as a loon. But
the maiden bore everything as well as she could, until one day the
nasty thing put his arm about her waist and kissed her before her very
face; _then_ she felt--well, it is not clear how she felt, but of one
thing she was quite sure: after having such a shame put upon her by
this insolent brute, she would never go back under her dear mother's
roof--never.
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