"My vanity may have grievously misled me, but I confess I expected a
very different result. My vanity may be misleading me still; for I must
acknowledge to you privately that I think Miss Vanstone was sorry to
refuse me. The reason she gave for her decision--no doubt a sufficient
reason in her estimation--did not at the time, and does not now, seem
sufficient to _me_. Sh e spoke in the sweetest and kindest manner, but
she firmly declared that 'her family misfortunes' left her no honorable
alternative--but to think of my own interests as I had not thought of
them myself--and gratefully to decline accepting my offer.
"She was so painfully agitated that I could not venture to plead my own
cause as I might otherwise have pleaded it. At the first attempt I
made to touch the personal question, she entreated me to spare her, and
abruptly left the room. I am still ignorant whether I am to interpret
the 'family misfortunes' which have set up this barrier between us, as
meaning the misfortune for which her parents alone are to blame, or
the misfortune of her having such a woman as Mrs. Noel Vanstone for her
sister. In whichever of these circumstances the obstacle lies, it is
no obstacle in my estimation.
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