"I know I'm a fool," said he; "and what's more, the girl does not care for me; but marry her I must, or I think I shall just die: and marry her I will." For very much to the credit of Miss Catherine's modesty, she had declared that marriage was with her a sine qua non, and had dismissed, with the loudest scorn and indignation, all propositions of a less proper nature.
Poor Thomas Bullock was another of her admirers, and had offered to marry her; but three shillings a week and a puddn was not to the girl's taste, and Thomas had been scornfully rejected.

Hayes had also made her a direct proposal.

Catherine did not say no: she was too prudent: but she was young and could wait; she did not care for Mr.Hayes yet enough to marry him--( it did not seem, indeed, in the young woman's nature to care for anybody)--and she gave her adorer flatteringly to understand that, if nobody better appeared in the course of a few years, she might be induced to become Mrs.Hayes.It was a dismal prospect for the poor fellow to live upon the hope of being one day Mrs.Catherine's pis-aller.
In the meantime she considered herself free as the wind, and permitted herself all the innocent gaieties which that "chartered libertine," a coquette, can take.

She flirted with all the bachelors, widowers, and married men, in a manner which did extraordinary credit to her years: and let not the reader fancy such pastimes unnatural at her early age.
The ladies--Heaven bless them!--are, as a general rule, coquettes from babyhood upwards.

Little SHE'S of three years old play little airs and graces upon small heroes of five; simpering misses of nine make attacks upon young gentlemen of twelve; and at sixteen, a well-grown girl, under encouraging circumstances--say, she is pretty, in a family of ugly elder sisters, or an only child and heiress, or a humble wench at a country inn, like our fair Catherine--is at the very pink and prime of her coquetry: they will jilt you at that age with an ease and arch infantine simplicity that never can be surpassed in maturer years.
Miss Catherine, then, was a franche coquette, and Mr.John Hayes was miserable.