Page:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1st edition), Volume 3 (Agnes Grey).djvu/220

212 wife; that I might just shew her how mistaken she is in supposing that I could ever—Oh! it provokes me so—To think that I could be such a fool as to fall in love! It is quite beneath the dignity of a woman to do such a thing. Love! I detest the word! as applied to one of our sex, I think it a perfect insult! a preference I might acknowledge; but never for one like poor Mr. Hatfield who has not seven hundred a year to bless himself with. I like to talk to him, because he's so clever and amusing—I wish Sir Thomas Ashby were half as nice—besides, I must have somebody to flirt with, and no one else has the sense to come here; and when we go out, mama wont let me flirt with anybody but Sir Thomas—if he's there, and if he's not there, I'm bound hand and foot, for fear somebody should go and make up some exaggerated story, and put it into his head that I'm engaged, or likely to be engaged to somebody else; or, what is more probable, for fear his nasty old mother should see, or hear of my ongoings, and conclude that I'm not a fit wife for her excellent son; as if the said son were not the greatest scamp in Christendom; and as if any woman of common decency were not a world too good for him."