that any one can be honest. And yet sometimes I think you would be a happier woman and a better woman if you were married."
"To such a one as the Honorable George, for instance?"
"No, not to such a one as him; you have probably picked out the worst."
"Or to Mr. Sowerby?"
"Well, no, not to Mr. Sowerby either. I would not have you marry any man that looked to you for your money principally."
"And how is it possible that I should expect any one to look to me principally for any thing else? You don't see my difficulty, my dear. If I had only five hundred a year, I might come across some decent middle-aged personage, like myself, who would like me, myself, pretty well, and would like my little income—pretty well also. He would not tell me any violent lie, and perhaps no lie at all. I should take to him in the same sort of way, and we might do very well. But as it is, how is it possible that any disinterested person should learn to like me? How could such a man set about it? If a sheep have two heads, is not the fact of the two heads the first, and, indeed, only thing which the world regards in that sheep? Must it not be as a matter of course? I am a sheep with two heads. All this money which my father put together, and which has been growing since like grass under May showers, has turned me into an abortion. I am not the giantess eight feet high, or the dwarf that stands in the man's hand—"
"Or the two-headed sheep—"
"But I am the unmarried woman with—half a dozen millions of money, as I believe some people think. Under such circumstances, have I a fair chance of getting my own sweet bit of grass to nibble, like any ordinary animal with one head? I never was very beautiful, and I am not more so now than I was fifteen years ago."
"I am quite sure it is not that which hinders it. You would not call yourself plain, and even plain women are married every day, and are loved, too, as well as pretty women."
"Are they? Well, we won't say more about that; but I don't expect a great many lovers on account of my beauty. If ever you hear of such a one, mind you tell me."
It was almost on Mrs. Gresham's tongue to say that she
