Make use of the article to answer the questions.

CHAPTER IX

DEFEAT OF MIRIAM

PAUL was dissatisfied with himself and with everything. The deepest of his love belonged to his mother. When he felt he had hurt her, or wounded his love for her, he could not bear it. Now it was spring, and there was battle between him and Miriam. This year he had a good deal against her. She was vaguely aware of it. The old feeling that she was to be a sacrifice to this love, which she had had when she prayed, was mingled in all her emotions. She did not at the bottom believe she ever would have him. She did not believe in herself primarily: doubted whether she could ever be what he would demand of her. Certainly she never saw herself living happily through a lifetime with him. She saw tragedy, sorrow, and sacrifice ahead. And in sacrifice she was proud, in renunciation she was strong, for she did not trust herself to support everyday life. She was prepared for the big things and the deep things, like tragedy. It was the sufficiency of the small day-life she could not trust.

The Easter holidays began happily. Paul was his own frank self. Yet she felt it would go wrong. On the Sunday afternoon she stood at her bedroom window, looking across at the oak-trees of the wood, in whose branches a twilight was tangled, below the bright sky of the afternoon. Grey-green rosettes of honeysuckle leaves hung before the window, some already, she fancied, showing bud. It was spring, which she loved and dreaded.

1. Who did Paul love the most?
2. Which season does the story take place in?
3. Who was Paul fighting with?
4. Did she believe she could have Paul?
5. How did she feel this relationship would bring?
6. What kind of plants were growing outside her window?
7. Where were the oak trees?
8. Did she have mixed emotions about the spring?
9. How did she feel about it?
10. What other plant was near her window?
11. What color were they?
1. his mother
2. Spring
3. Miriam
4. No
5. tragedy
6. oak-trees
7. outside her bedroom window
8. Yes
9. she felt it would go wrong
10. rosettes of honeysuckle
11. Grey-green