There is no keeping a secret in Bridgeport , and everybody knew all about the love affair between Marcella and the doctor and about the promise she had made . Everybody sympathized with the doctor because everybody believed he had lost his sweetheart . `` For of course she 'll never come back , '' said Mrs. Riddell to me . `` She 's only a child and she 'll soon forget him . She 's to be sent to school and taken abroad and between times she 'll live with the Richard Barrys ; and they move , as everyone knows , in the very highest and gayest circles . I 'm sorry for the doctor , though . A man of his age does n't get over a thing like that in a hurry and he was perfectly silly over Marcella . But it really serves him right for falling in love with a child . '' There are times when Martha Riddell gets on my nerves . She 's a good-hearted woman , and she means well ; but she rasps -- rasps terribly . Even Miss Sara exasperated me . But then she had her excuse . The child she loved as her own had been torn from her and it almost broke her heart . But even so , I thought she ought to have had a little more faith in Marcella . `` Oh , no , she 'll never come back , '' sobbed Miss Sara . `` Yes , I know she promised . But they 'll wean her away from me . She 'll have such a gay , splendid life she 'll not want to come back . Five years is a lifetime at her age . No , do n't try to comfort me , Miss Tranquil , because I wo n't be comforted ! ''
When a person has made up her mind to be miserable you just have XXXXX let her be miserable .
about as at between from in of over to with