And, if he should die, what can I get by him?
A jointure’s nothing among fifty-three!
I’m meek enough—but this I can not bear—
I wish: I wish:—I wish a girl might swear!”
In such a mood, she—(stop! I’ll mend my pen;
For now all our preliminaries are done,
And I am come unto the crisis, when
Her fate depends on a kind reader’s pardon)—
Wandering forth beyond the ladies’ ken,
She thought she spied a male face in the garden—