Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/283

Rh should, if she knew what I was thinking about. How distinctly I remember our conversation that evening before our departure for town, when we were sitting together over the fire, my uncle having gone to bed with a slight attack of the gout.

"Helen," said she, after a thoughtful silence, "do you ever think about marriage?"

"Yes aunt, often."

"And do you ever contemplate the possibility of being married yourself, or engaged, before the season is over?"

"Sometimes; but I don't think it at all likely that I ever shall."

"Why so?"

"Because, I imagine there must be only a very, very few men in the world, that I should like to marry; and of those few, it is ten to one I may never be acquainted with one; or if I should, it is twenty to one, he may not happen to be single, or to take a fancy to me."

"That is no argument at all. It may be very