Washington Square

Washington Square,
a novel by H. James , published 1881 .

Catherine Sloper lives in Washington Square with her widowed father, a rich physician. She is plain, shy, without social graces or conversation. Dr Sloper cannot conceal his disappointment that she has nothing of her dead mother's beauty and wit. When the handsome, but penniless and indolent, Morris Townsend begins to court her, he casts him, correctly, as a fortune-hunter. Both Catherine's romantic hopes and Morris's pecuniary ones are encouraged and abetted by the girl's silly aunt, Lavinia Penniman. Dr Sloper will disinherit Catherine if she marries Morris, and although she has a certain fortune in her own right it is not enough for the greedy Morris and he jilts her. Even the dull Catherine is not deceived by his assertion that he is renouncing her to preserve her inheritance. Life in Washington Square continues soberly. Catherine, despised by her father, pitied by her...

[The entire page is 225 words long]

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