like shuddering. "The gradual decay, the loss first of one sense then another, the tastelessness and weariness of everything, the incessant craving for rest must be terrible. . . . . I would die swiftly, at my best, with my powers in full vigour, be remembered, not dawdle out of existence to the tune of folks' pity; so that when I really went I should be missed. . . . The liveliest sensation one should experience on hearing of the death of a man should be that you are violently shocked—grief should follow in due course."
"I think it would be very selfish of you if you died before me," say, foolishly enough, "for if there is anything I should hate, it would be to leave nobody behind to make a great howl over me. All my brothers and sisters would be married, of course, and have their own selves and families to weep about. It must be unpleasant to live so long that people think it rather indecent of you to be so long about saying good-bye, must it not?"
"Very. I don't think you and I will ever sit down to double dummy whist though, Nell. I don't mean to rust all my life out here; I mean to try to do something, be somebody."
"'Be good, my child, and let who will be clever,'" I quote; "though if you do succeed in doing anything remarkable, which I doubt, you must run back to Silverbridge and tell me all about it, for oh, I shall find it so dull here!"
"Well," says George, "you have more spirit than any girl I ever saw or heard of. Here you are, at the age of twenty-two, making up your mind calmly to a long life in this wretched little village, with nothing to break the monotony of it, save the deaths and marriages in your family. I tell you it's monstrous, Nell, and you'll never do it."
"I don't know what all the other young women do who have been crossed in love, and aren't lucky enough to catch a fever or be run over by a postchaise or a railway train; they must live somewhere, must they not? And one place is as good to live in
