matters as she was
situated, possessed of good means, hampered by no outer demands,
would have declared to himself clearly that it would be well for him
to marry. But he would probably be content to wait a while and would,
unless in love, feel the delay to be a luxury. But Miss Mackenzie
could not confess as much, even to herself,--could not let herself
know that she thought as much; but yet she desired to be married, and
dreaded delay. She desired to be married, although she was troubled
by some half-formed idea that it would be wicked. Who was she,
that she should be allowed to be in love? Was she not an old
maid by prescription, and, as it were, by the force of ordained
circumstances? Had it not been made very clear to her when she
was young that she had no right to fall in love, even with Harry
Handcock? And although in certain moments of ecstasy, as when she
kissed herself in the glass, she almost taught herself to think that
feminine charms and feminine privileges had not been all denied to
her, such was not her permanent opinion of herself. She despised
herself. Why, she knew not; and probably did not know that she did
so. But, in truth, she despised herself, thinking herself to be too
mean for a man's love.

She had been asked to marry him by her cousin Mr Ball, and she had
almost yielded. But had she married him it would not have been
because she thought herself good enough to be loved by him, but
because she held herself to be so insignificant that she had no right
to ask for love. She would have taken him because she could have been
of use, and because she would have felt that she had no right to
demand any other purpose in the world. She would have done this, had
she not been deterred by the rude offer of other advantages which had
with so much ill judgment been made to her by her aunt.

Now, here was a lover who was not old and careworn, who was
personally agreeable to her, with whom something of the customary
romance of the world might be possible. Should she take him? She knew
well that there were drawbacks. Her perceptions had not missed to
notice the man's imperfections, his vulgarities, his false promises,
his little pushing ways. But why was she to expect him to be perfect,
seeing, as she so plainly did, her own imperfections? As for her
money, of course he wanted her money. So had Mr Ball wanted her
money. What man on earth could have wished to marry her unless she
had had money? It was thus that