Which sentences in this excerpt from William Dean Howells's "Editha" use an ironic tone?
The lady who was passing the summer near Balcom's Works was sketching Editha's beauty, which lent itself wonderfully to the effects of a colorist. It had come to that confidence which is rather apt to grow between artist and sitter, and Editha had told her everything.

"To think of your having such a tragedy in your life!" the lady said. She added: "I suppose there are people who feel that way about war. But when you consider how much this war has done for the country! I can't understand such people, for my part. And when you had come all the way out there to console her--got up out of a sick bed! Well!”

“I think,” Editha said magnanimously, “she wasn’t quite in her right mind; so did papa.”

“Yes,” the lady said, looking at Editha’s lips in nature and then at her lips in art, and giving an empirical touch to them in the picture. “But how dreadful of her! How perfectly—excuse me—how vulgar!”

Respuesta :

To think of your having such a tragedy in your life!" 

The sentences in this excerpt of "Editha" that have an ironic tone are:

""To think of your having such a tragedy in your life!"

This sentence is ironic because Editha brought her tragedy on her own: the only reason her fiancé is dead, which lead to an argument with his mother, is because she insisted that he went to war, even threatened to end the engagement if he didn't.

" But when you consider how much this war has done for the country!"

This has an ironic tone because wars are never positive for a country. They represent a loss of life and a heavy weight in the economy.

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