I would laugh, and satirize, and say whatever came into my head first.

And if he were a clever man, and loved me, the whole world, weighed in the balance against his smallest wish, should be light as air." So that--her first proposal of marriage--was quietly declined and put on one side.

Matrimony did not enter into the scheme of her life, but good, sound, earnest labour did; the question, however, was as yet undecided in what direction she should employ her forces.

She had been discouraged in literature; her eyes failed her in the minute kind of drawing which she practised when she wanted to express an idea; teaching seemed to her at this time, as it does to most women at all times, the only way of earning an independent livelihood.

But neither she nor her sisters were naturally fond of children.