Her Faithful Knight — page 186: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

182 The Blow Falls. met men we could have loved better than our husbands,” observed the elder lady, philosophically. ‘The great thing is to meet them before and not after marriage. Pas- sionate love wears off in a week or two in any case, and it is really not well bred for a young girl to be in love with any man before she marries him. There is a great deal too much silly nonsense written about falling in love, where we English women are concerned, at least. Of course, a poetic and emotional creature like poor, dear Darcy, without one drop of Anglo-Saxon blood in his veins, goes to the maddest extremes of emotion. But nineteen out of every twenty properly brought-up young English women marry because they are uncomfortable at home, or because they’re afraid of being old maids, or because they would like a house of their own, and ser- vants to bully, or because they want money. The twentieth marries because she loves the man, and in those cases he generally gets tired first and neglects her, be- cause he is too sure of her, and her jealousy worries him. Your attitude of polite friendliness, and a sort of appre- ciative liking, is the right one for a bride, take my word for it.” | Yet, in spite of Mrs. Stourton-Chepe’s approbation and encouragement, Dorothy, on the eve of her wedding, was thoroughly unhappy. For several hours after retiring supperless to her room she lay on her bed fully dressed, face downward, burying her cheeks in a pillow soaked with tears. Once or twice she even started up with the crazy idea of dashing off somewhere—anywhere, where the Hon. Darcy would not be able to find her: for the ceremony of the following day. It was the remembrance of the money which Darcy had given her to send to Phyllis which restrained her. “He has bought me,” she whispered to herself in a fit of passionate weeping. “It is cruel and cowardly of him! EOMmIGsoo “S (S@)