Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 2.djvu/255

This page has been validated.
OF WILDFELL HALL.
245

"Not very often."

"But you have more frequent opportunities of meeting her than I have: and she loves you I know, and reverences you too: there is nobody's opinion she thinks so much of; and she says you have more sense than mamma."

"That is because she is self-willed, and my opinions more generally coincide with her own than your mamma's. But what then, Milicent?"

"Well, since you have so much influence with her, I wish you would seriously impress it upon her, never, on any account, or for any body's persuasion, to marry for the sake of money, or rank, or establishment, or any earthly thing, but true affection and well-grounded esteem."

"There is no necessity for that," said I; "for we have had some discourse on that subject already, and I assure you her ideas of love and matrimony are as romantic as any one could desire."

"But romantic notions will not do: I want her to have true notions."