has no reason to disclaim her
share in her Nancy: and if the matter go off with greater severity on
her side than I wish for, then her favourite Hickman fares the worse for
it next day.

I know I am a saucy creature. I know, if I do not say so, you will think
so. So no more of this just now. What I mention it for, is to tell you,
that on this serious occasion I will omit, if I can, all that passed
between us, that had an air of flippancy on my part, or quickness on my
mother's, to let you into the cool and cogent of the conversation.

'Look through the families, said she, which we both know, where the man
and the woman have been said to marry for love; which (at the time it
is so called) is perhaps no more than a passion begun in folly or
thoughtlessness, and carried on from a spirit of perverseness and
opposition [here we had a parenthetical debate, which I omit]; and see,
if they appear to be happier than those whose principal inducement to
marry has been convenience, or to oblige their friends; or ever whether
they are generally so happy: for convenience and duty, where observed,
will afford a permanent and even an increasing satisfaction (as well
at the time, as upon the reflection) which seldom fail to reward
themselves: while love, if love be the motive, is an idle passion' [idle
in ONE SENSE my mother cannot say; for love is as busy as a monkey, and
as mischievous as a school-boy]--'it is a fervour, that, like all other
fervours, lasts but a little while after marriage; a bow overstrained,
that soon returns to its natural bent.

'As it is founded generally upon mere notional excellencies, which
were unknown to the persons themselves till attributed to either by the
other; one, two, or three months, usually sets all right on both sides;
and then with opened eyes they think of each other--just as every body
else thought of them before.

'The lovers imaginaries [her own notable word!] are by that time gone
off; nature and old habits (painfully dispensed with or concealed)
return: disguises thrown aside, all the moles, freckles, and defects in
the minds of each discover themselves; and 'tis well if each do not sink
in the opinion of the other, as much below the common standard, as the
blinded imagination of both had set them above it. And now, said she,
the fond pair, who knew no felicity out of each other's company, are
so far from finding the never-ending variety each had proposed in
an unrestrained conversati