method, and hundreds of other circumstances I can easily conceive
arising, affecting you as well as me, and from which I can foresee
innumerable advantages. Thank you for so patiently listening to me. Now,
do you say what you think, and say it out freely and fully; I will not
interrupt you."

"Very well," replied Charlotte; "I will begin at once with a general
observation. Men think most of the immediate--the present; and rightly,
their calling being to do and to work; women, on the other hand, more of
how things hang together in life; and that rightly too, because their
destiny--the destiny of their families--is bound up in this
interdependence, and it is exactly this which it is their mission to
promote. So now let us cast a glance at our present and our past life;
and you will acknowledge that the invitation of the Captain does not
fall in so entirely with our purposes, our plans, and our arrangements.
I will go back to those happy days of our earliest intercourse. We loved
each other, young as we then were, with all our hearts. We were parted:
you from me--your father, from an insatiable desire of wealth, choosing
to marry you to an elderly and rich lady; I from you, having to give my
hand, without any especial motive, to an excellent man, whom I
respected, if I did not love. We became again free--you first, your poor
mother at the same time leaving you in possession of your large fortune;
I later, just at the time when you returned from abroad. So we met once
more. We spoke of the past; we could enjoy and love the recollection of
it; we might have been contented, in each other's society, to leave
things as they were. You were urgent for our marriage. I at first
hesitated. We were about the same age; but I as a woman had grown older
than you as a man. At last I could not refuse you what you seemed to
think the one thing you cared for. All the discomfort which you had ever
experienced, at court, in the army, or in traveling, you were to recover