in England, and accept one of 16_l_.

in Belgium.

I must, forsooth, have some remote hope of entrapping a husband somehow, or somewhere.

If these charitable people knew the total seclusion of the life I lead,--that I never exchange a word with any other man than Monsieur Heger, and seldom indeed with him,--they would, perhaps, cease to suppose that any such chimerical and groundless notion had influenced my proceedings.

Have I said enough to clear myself of so silly an imputation?
Not that it is a crime to marry, or a crime to wish to be married; but it is an imbecility, which I reject with contempt, for women, who have neither fortune nor beauty, to make marriage the principal object of their wishes and hopes, and the aim of all their actions; not to be able to convince themselves that they are unattractive, and that they had better be quiet, and think of other things than wedlock." The following is an extract, from one of the few letters which have been preserved, of her correspondence with her sister Emily:-- "May 29, 1843 "I get on here from day to day in a Robinson-Crusoe-like sort of way, very lonely, but that does not signify.