What right had she to stand in the way of her friends, or to be a
burden to them when such a mode of life was offered to her? She had
nothing of her own, and regarded herself as being a dead weight on
the family. And she was conscious in a certain degree of isolation
in the household,--as being her father's only child by the first
marriage. She would hardly know how to look her father in the face
and tell him that she had again refused the man. But yet there was
something awful to her in the idea of giving herself to a man
without loving him,--in becoming a man's wife when she would fain
remain away from him! Would it be possible that she should live
with him while her feelings were of such a nature? And then she
blushed as she lay in the dark, with her cheek on her pillow, when
she found herself forced to inquire within her own heart whether
she did not love some one else. She would not own it, and yet she
blushed, and yet she thought of it. If there might be such a man it
was not the young clergyman to whom her mother had alluded.
Through all that morning she was very quiet, very pale, and in
truth very unhappy. Her father said no further word to her, and her
stepmother had been implored to be equally reticent. "I shan't
speak another word," said Mrs. Masters; "her fortune is in her own
hands and if she don't choose to take it I've done with her.
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