My goodwill, my affection for children would, I believed, be helpful to make me a good guide to them; and thus, though I could not become a wife, I might yet enjoy the blessing of a mother.
"And why could you not--why could you not ?" interrupted Elise.
"People say," returned Evelina, smiling, "that you had to make your selection of a husband from many adorers; you cannot then understand a case in which there should not even be one choice.

But truly, indeed, that was my case.

But do not look at me so amazed--don't look at me as if I were guilty of high treason.

The truth is, sweet Elise, that I never had an opportunity to say either yes or no to a lover.

With my sisters, who were much more agreeable and much more attractive than I, it was otherwise." But now I must return to that moment of my life when I released myself from every-day paths--but, thank God! not with violence, not amid discontent; but with the blessing of those who had given me life, for which I now, for the first time, blessed them.
Touched by my steadfastness of purpose, and by the true goodwill which they had perceived in me, my parents determined--God reward them for it!--to bestow upon my desired domestic establishment the sum of money which they had put aside for my dowry, in case I married.