I had expected to find you, I think, rather stumpy in figure, and square in build, with a very determined and businesslike manner." "Nonsense, uncle, you could not have expected that." "Well, my dear, I did, and you see I find I was utterly wrong." "But you are not discontented, uncle ?" Isobel asked, with a smile.
"No, my dear, but perhaps not quite so contented as you may think I ought to be." "Why is that, uncle ?" "Well, my dear, if you had been what I had pictured you, I might have had you four or five years to myself.

Possibly you might even have gone home with me, to keep house for me in England, when I retire.

As it is now, I give myself six months at the outside." "What nonsense, uncle! You don't suppose I am going to fall in love with the first man who presents himself?
Why, everyone says the sea voyage is a most trying time, and, you see, I came through that quite scathless.
"Besides, uncle," and she laughed, "there is safety in multitude, and I think that a girl would be far more likely to fall in love in some country place, where she only saw one or two men, than where there are numbers of them.

Besides, it seems to me that in India a girl cannot feel that she is chosen, as it were, from among other girls, as she would do at home.

There are so few girls, and so many men here, there must be a sort of feeling that you are only appreciated because there is nothing better to be had.
"But, of course, uncle, you can understand that the idea of love making and marrying never entered my head at all until I went on board a ship.