Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body else.

Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?" Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together, and yet for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.

A persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.

It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides.

I have no talent for certainty.

I do assure you, Sir, that I have no pretension whatever of that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.

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.