“Indeed it is, Adolphus,” said she. “You mistake my character. I’m not at all anxious for London parties and gaiety. Stupid as you may think me, I’m quite as well contented to stay here as I should be to go to London.”
“Do you mean me to believe,” said Kilcullen, with a gentle laugh, “that you are contented to live and die in single blessedness at Grey Abbey?—that your ambition does not soar higher than the interchange of worsted-work patterns with Miss O’Joscelyn?”
“I did not say so, Adolphus.”
“What is your ambition then? what kind and style of life would you choose to live? Come, Fanny, I wish I could get you to talk with me about yourself. I wish I could teach you to believe how anxious I am that your future life should be happy and contented, and at the same time splendid and noble, as it should be. I’m sure you must have ambition. I have studied Lavater [47] well enough to know that such a head and face as yours never belonged to a mind that could satisfy itself with worsted-work.”
“You are very severe on the poor worsted-work.”
“But am I not in the right?”
“Decidedly not. Lavater, and my head and face, have misled you.”
“Nonsense, Fanny. Do you mean to tell me that you have no aspiration for a kind of life different from this you are leading?—If so, I am much disappointed in you; much, very much astray in my judgment of your character.” Then he walked on a few yards, looking on the ground, and said, “Come, Fanny, I am talking very earnestly to you, and you answer me only in joke. You don’t think me impertinent, do you, to talk about yourself?”
“Impertinent, Adolphus—of course I don’t.”
“Why won’t you talk to me then, in the spirit in which I am talking to you? If you knew, Fanny, how interested I am about you, how anxious that you should be happy, how confidently I look forward to the distinguished position I expect you to fill—if you could guess how proud I mean to be of you, when you are the cynosure of all eyes—the admired of all admirers—admired not more for your beauty than your talent—if I could make you believe, Fanny, how much I expect from you, and how fully I trust that my expectations will be realised, you would not, at any rate, answer me lightly.”