er only fault is, her virtues being written in
water--I know not of one other fault. She has too much softness to be
able to say 'no' in the right place--and thus, without the slightest
levity ... perfectly blameless in that respect, ... she says half a
yes or a quarter of a yes, or a yes in some sort of form, too
often--but I will tell you. Two years ago, three men were loving her,
as they called it. After a few months, and the proper quantity of
interpretations, one of them consoled himself by giving nick-names to
his rivals. Perseverance and Despair he called them, and so, went up
to the boxes to see out the rest of the play. Despair ran to a crisis,
was rejected in so many words, but appealed against the judgment and
had his claim admitted--it was all silence and mildness on each side
... a tacit gaining of ground,--Despair 'was at least a gentleman,'
said my brothers. On which Perseverance came on with violent
re-iterations,--insisted that she loved him without knowing it, or
_should_--elbowed poor Despair into the open streets, who being a
gentleman wouldn't elbow again--swore that 'if she married another he
would wait till she became a widow, trusting to Providence' ... _did_
wait every morning till the head of the house was out, and sate day by
day, in spite of the disinclination of my sisters and the rudeness of
all my brothers, four hours in the drawing-room ... let himself be
refused once a week and sate all the longer ... allowed everybody in
the house (and a few visitors) to see and hear him in fits of
hysterical sobbing, and sate on unabashed, the end being that he sits
now sole regnant, my poor sister saying softly, with a few tears of
remorse for her own instability, that she is 'taken by storm and
cannot help it.' I give you only the _resume_ of this military
movement--and though I seem to smile, which it was impossible to avoid
at some points of the evidence as I heard it from first one person and
then another, yet I am woman enough rather to be glad that the
decision is made _so_. He is sincerely attached to her, I believe; and
the want of refinement and sensibility (for he understood her
affections to be engaged to another at one time) is covered in a
measure by the earnestness,--and justified too by the event--everybody
being quite happy and contented, even to Despair, who has a new horse
and takes lessons in music.

That's love--is it not? And that's my answer (if you look for it) to
the question