"No, I will not, if I can possibly help it."

"But you can't help it; you are not the character to help it. The
first man that comes to you and says: 'I know you rather dislike me'
(you could not hate anybody, Lucy,) 'but if you don't take me I shall
die of a broken fiddlestick,' you will whine out, 'Oh, dear! shall
you? Well, then, sooner than disoblige you, here--take me!'"

"Am I so weak as this?" asked Lucy, coloring, and the water coming
into her eyes.

"Don't be offended," said the other, coolly; "we won't call it
weakness, but excess of complaisance; you can't say no to anybody."

"Yet I have said it," replied Lucy, thoughtfully.

"Have you? When? Oh, to me. Yes; where I am concerned you have
sometimes a will of your own, and a pretty stout one; but never with
anybody else."

The aunt then inquired of the niece, "frankly, now, between
ourselves," whether she had no wish to be married. The niece informed
her in confidence that she had not, and was puzzled to conceive how
the bare idea of marriage came to be so tempting to her sex. Of
course, she could understand a lady wishing to marry, if she loved a
gentleman who was determined to be unhappy without her; but that women
should look about for some hunter to catch instead of waiting quietly
till the hunter caught them, this puzzled her; and as for the
superstitious love of females for the marriage rite in cases when it
took away their liberty and gave them nothing amiable in return, it