But to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible.

No: the years which had destroyed her youth and bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly, open look, in no respect lessening his personal advantages. She had seen the same Frederick Wentworth.

If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost any attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all begin ‘freely’- as light preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have a heart enough to be really in love without encouragement.

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.

Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret.

A very short trial convinced her that a curricle was the prettiest equipage in the world.

She tried to be calm, and leave things to take their course; and tried to dwell much on this argument of rational dependence – “Surely, if there be constant attachment on each side, our hearts must understand each other ere long. We are not boy and girl, to be captiously irritable, misled by every moment’s inadvertence, and wantonly playing with our own happiness.” And yet, a few minutes afterwards, she felt as if their being in company with each other, under their present circumstances, could only be exposing them to inadvertencies and misconstructions of the most mischievous kind.