ny persons
besides myself, too happily circumstanced to have any pressing
inducement to change your condition, and too fortunately endowed in
every way to have reason to anticipate the least difficulty in
changing it to the greatest worldly advantage when you please.

"What I am and have been, you know. I may estrange from you some of
the society which you enjoy, and I can introduce you to none that
would compensate you for the loss. I am what you call poor: my
income at present does not amount to much more than fifteen
hundred pounds; and I should not ask you to marry me if it were not
that your own inheritance is sufficient, as I have ascertained, to
provide for you in case of my early death. You know how my sister
is situated; how your family are likely to feel toward me on her
account and my own; and how impatient I am of devoting much time to
what is fashionably supposed to be pleasure. On the other hand, as
I am bidding for a consent and not for a refusal, I hope you will
not take my disadvantages for more, or my advantages for less, than
they are honestly worth. At Carbury Park you often said that you
would never marry; and I have said the same myself. So, as we
neither of us overrate the possibilities of happiness in marriage,
perhaps we might, if you would be a little forbearing with me,
succeed in proving that we have greatly underrated them. As for the
prudence of the step, I have seen and practised too much prudence
to believe that it is worth much as a rule of conduct in a world of
accidents. If there were a science of life as there is one of
mechanics, we could plan our lives scientifically and run no risks;
but as it is, we must--together or apart--take our chance:
cautiousness and recklessness divide the great stock of regrets
pretty equally.

"Perhaps you will wonder at my selfishness in wanting you, for my
own good, to forfeit your present happy independence among your
friends, and involve your fortunes with those of a man whom you
have only seen on occasions when ceremony compelled him to observe
his best behavior. I can only excuse myself by reminding you that
no matter whom you marry, you must do so at the same disadvantages,
except as to the approval of your friends, of which the value is
for you to consider. That being so, why should I not profit by your
hazard as well as another? Besides, there are many other feelings