"
"I have no secret,--none at least from you, or from mamma; and,
indeed, none from him. We were both very foolish, thinking that we
knew each other and our own hearts, when we knew neither."
"I hate to hear people talk of knowing their hearts. My idea is,
that if you like a young man, and he asks you to marry him, you
ought to have him. That is, if there is enough to live on. I don't
know what more is wanted. But girls are getting to talk and think
as though they were to send their hearts through some fiery furnace
of trial before they may give them up to a husband's keeping. I am
not at all sure that the French fashion is not the best, and that
these things shouldn't be managed by the fathers and mothers, or
perhaps by the family lawyers. Girls who are so intent upon knowing
their own hearts generally end by knowing nobody's heart but their
own; and then they die old maids."
"Better that than give themselves to the keeping of those they don't
know and cannot esteem."
"That's a matter of taste. I mean to take the first that comes, so
long as he looks like a gentleman, and has not less than eight
hundred a year. Now Godfrey does look like a gentleman, and has
double that. If I had such a chance I shouldn't think twice about
it."
"But I have no such chance.
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