Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/91

Rh "Pray don't!" said I. "Obedience from such a motive would be positive wickedness, and certain to bring the punishment it deserved. Stand firm, and your mamma will soon relinquish her persecution;—and the gentleman himself will cease to pester you with his addresses if he finds them steadily rejected."

"Oh, no! mamma will weary all about her before she tires herself with her exertions; and as for Mr. Oldfield, she has given him to understand that I have refused his offer, not from any dislike of his person, but merely because I am giddy and young, and cannot at present reconcile myself to the thoughts of marriage under any circumstances: but, by next season, she has no doubt, I shall have more sense, and hopes my girlish fancies will be worn away. So she has brought me home, to school me into a proper sense of my duty, against the time comes round again—indeed, I believe she will not put herself to the expense of taking me up to