“No, but he would have been very glad to have married me, even though I have no fortune, because his housekeeper is lately dead, and he does not know how to go on, and I can dress meat neatly and cheaply, besides being able to sew, and to iron better than the washerwoman.”
The vision of an impoverished but romantic young lover died still-born. Daunted, Kitty said: “And was there no one else? No one at all? I declare, it must be as dull as my own home, and I had thought that nothing could be!”
“Only young Mr. Drakemire,” said Olivia. “He is rather stout, but very genteel. He stood up twice with me at the Assembly, but the Drakemires, you must know, live at the Big House, and Lady Drakemire did not at all like his seeming to admire me, so he did not take me out driving as he said he would. Mama scolded, but indeed it was not my fault! I said everything she told me to, but it wouldn’t serve.” “I have sometimes thought,” said Kitty, tentatively, and after a short pause, “that nothing could be more disagreeable than to marry a gentleman for whom one feels no strong attachment.”
“No, indeed!” Olivia sighed.
“I could not do it. In fact, I would liefer by far die unwed!”
“Would you?” said Olivia wistfully. “But, then, dear Miss Charing, our circumstances are so different! You have all the comfort and consequence of fortune—”
“No, I assure you I have not! I am wholly dependant upon the generosity of my guardian! I do not exaggerate when I say that I have not a penny in the world!”
“Yes, but your guardian is rich, is he not? Mama, you see, is not rich at all, and I have three sisters,” said Olivia unanswerably. “I must be married. Oh, how vexed Mama would be if she was obliged to take me home again, and all the money she saved for this visit spent to no purpose!”
She looked so really frightened that Kitty said quickly: ‘ ‘Of course you will be married, and to a man you can esteem, too! Good gracious, don’t tell me you have not a great many admirers already, for I shall certainly not believe you! Indeed, I think everyone who sees you must admire you, for you are by far the prettiest girl in London!”
Olivia coloured, and averted her face. “Don’t—pray! Gentlemen do sometimes admire me, but—but they do not offer to marry me. Situated as I am—the manners of my cousins—so very free!—I have met with a want of propriety in—in some whom I believed to be so very gentlemanly!”