'I dare not answer as you would like me to answer,' she faltered, after
a painful pause. 'I am not my own mistress. My grandmother has brought
me up, devoted herself to me almost, and she has her own views, her own
plans. I dare not frustrate them!'
'She would like to marry you to a man of rank and fortune--a man who
will choose you, perhaps, because other people admire you, rather than
because he himself loves you as you ought to be loved; who will choose
you because you are altogether the best and most perfect thing of your
year; just as he would buy a yearling at Newmarket or Doncaster. Her
ladyship means you to make a great alliances--coronets, not hearts, are
the counters for her game; but, Lesbia, would you, in the bloom and
freshness of youth--you with the pulses of youth throbbing at your
heart--lend yourself to the calculations of age which has lived its life
and forgotten the very meaning of love? Would you submit to be played as
a card in the game of a dowager's ambition? Trust me, dearest, in the
crisis of a woman's life there is one only counsellor she should listen
to, and that counsellor is her own heart.
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