ld, it would be better that you should listen to me.
Marriage, you know, is an honourable state."

"Yes, I know, of course. But, aunt Charlotte--"

"Hush, my dear."

"A girl need not be married unless she likes."

"If I were dead, with whom would you live? Who would there be to
guard you and guide you?"

"But you are not going to die."

"Linda, that is very wicked."

"And why can I not guide myself?"

"Because you are young, and weak, and foolish. Because it is right
that they who are frail, and timid, and spiritless, should be made
subject to those who are strong and able to hold dominion and to
exact obedience." Linda did not at all like being told that she was
spiritless. She thought that she might be able to show spirit enough
were it not for the duty that she owed to her aunt. And as for
obedience, though she were willing to obey her aunt, she felt that
her aunt had no right to transfer her privilege in that respect
to another. But she said nothing, and her aunt went on with her
proposition.

"Our lodger, Peter Steinmarc, has spoken to me, and he is anxious to
make you his wife."

"Peter Steinmarc!"

"Yes, Linda; Peter Steinmarc."

"Old Peter Steinmarc!"

"He is not old. What has his being old to do with it?"

"I will never marry Peter Steinmarc, aunt Charlotte."

Madame Staubach had not expected to meet with immediate and positive
obedience. She had thought it probable that there might be some
opposition shown to her plan when it was first brought forward.
Indeed, how could it be otherwise, when marriage was suggested
abruptly to such a girl as Linda Tressel, even though the suggested
husband had been an Apollo? What young woman could have said,
"Oh, certainly; whenever you please, aunt Charlotte," to such a
proposition? Feeling this, Madame Staubach would have gone to work by
degrees,--would have opened her siege by gradual trenches, and have
approached the citadel by parallels, before she attempted to take
it by storm, had she known anything of the ways and forms of such
strategy. But though she knew that there were such ways and forms of
strategy among the ungodly, out in the world with the worldly, she
had practised none such herself, and knew nothing of the mode in
which they should be conducted. On this subject, if on any, her niece
owed to her obedience, and she would claim that obedience as hers of
right. Though Linda would at first be startled, she would probably be
not the less will