And all the use she had had for them was to convert them to her views--a task so easy as to be quite uninteresting--with a vague idea that they might come in handy in the future, when she might need help in shaping that world of the future.
Only once had she ever thought of marriage.

And that was in favour of a middle-aged, rheumatic widower with three children, a professor of chemistry, very learned and justly famous.

For about a month she had thought herself in love.

She pictured herself devoting her life to him, rubbing his poor left shoulder where it seemed he suffered most, and brushing his picturesque hair, inclined to grey.

Fortunately his eldest daughter was a young woman of resource, or the poor gentleman, naturally carried off his feet by this adoration of youth and beauty, might have made an ass of himself.