“As I endeavoured to explain to you before, that depends entirely upon what the merchant is, and upon what my daughter feels for him.”
Rosamond sighed.
“I ought to observe, that merchants are now quite in a different class from what they were at the first rise of commerce in these countries,” continued her mother. “Their education, their habits of thinking, knowledge, and manners, are improved, and, consequently, their consideration, their rank in society is raised. In our days, some of the best informed, most liberal, and most respectable men in the British dominions are merchants. I could not therefore object to my daughter’s marrying a merchant; but I should certainly inquire anxiously what sort of a merchant he was. I do not mean that I should inquire whether he was concerned in this or that branch of commerce, but whether his mind were free from every thing mercenary and illiberal. I have done so with respect to Mr. Gresham, and I can assure you solemnly, that Mr. Gresham’s want of the advantage of high birth is completely counterbalanced in my opinion by his superior qualities. I see in him a cultivated, enlarged, generous mind. I have seen him tried, where his passions and his interests have been nearly concerned, and I never saw in him the slightest tincture of vulgarity in manner or sentiment: therefore, my dear daughter, if he has made an impression on your heart, do not, on my account, conceal or struggle against it; because, far from objecting to Mr. Gresham for a son-in-law, I should prefer him to any gentleman or nobleman who had not his exalted character.”
“There!” cried Caroline, with a look of joyful triumph, “there! my dear Rosamond, now your heart must be quite at ease!”
But looking at Rosamond at this moment, she saw no expression of joy or pleasure in her countenance; and Caroline was now convinced that she had been mistaken about Rosamond’s feelings.
“Really and truly, mother, you think all this?”
“Really and truly, my dear, no motive upon earth would make me disguise my opinions, or palliate even my prejudices, when you thus consult me, and depend upon my truth. And now that I have said this much, I will say no more, lest I should bias you on the other side: I will leave you to your own feelings and excellent understanding.”
Rosamond’s affectionate heart was touched so by her mother’s kindness, that she could not for some minutes repress her tears. When she recovered her voice, she assured her mother and Caroline, with a seriousness and an earnest frankness which at once convinced them of her truth, that she had not the slightest partiality for Mr. Gresham; that, on the contrary, his age was to her a serious objection. She had feared that her friends might wish for the match, and that being conscious she had no other objection to make to Mr. Gresham except that she could not love him, she had hesitated for want of a better reason, when her mother first began this cross-examination.
Relieved by this thorough explanation, and by the conviction that her father, mother, and sister, were perfectly satisfied with her decision, Rosamond was at ease as far as she herself was concerned. But she still dreaded to see Mr. Gresham again. She was excessively sorry to have given him pain, and she feared not a little that in rejecting the lover she should lose the friend.
Mr. Gresham, however, was of too generous a character to cease to be the friend of the woman he loved, merely because she could not return his passion: it is wounded pride, not disappointed affection, that turns immediately from love to hatred.