to account for one's whereabouts    to care for a relative    to settle for second best    to allow for mistakes

Do whatever works.

Again she felt a return of that utter despondency which had fallen upon her after Guido's death: but then she could indulge in it unmolested, and that was something of relief: now she was forced into exertion, that sort of exertion of all the most tiresome, because the least interesting...

(To the grammarnazis - I meant just what I said).