Excerpt
"Don't be angry, ma'ma—I wont jest any more, if it displease you, but I will make a plain confession."
"Well," said Mrs. Clifford, "let me hear it."
"I have not one feeling which I wish to conceal from you. There have been moments when I liked Mr. Franklin," and a pretty color crossed her cheek, "but I have been struck with a peculiarity which has chilled warmer sentiments. He appears phlegmatic and cold. There is about him a perpetual repose that seems inconsistent with energy and feeling. I am not satisfied that I could be happy with such a person—not certain that he is capable of loving, or of inspiring love. When I marry any one, he must worship, he must adore me. He must be ready to go crazy for me. Let him be full of faults, but let him have—what so few possess—a warm, unselfish heart."
"I have heard you, through," said Mrs. Clifford, "now you must hear me. It is very proper that you should not decide without full consideration. Examine as long as you think necessary the qualities of Mr. Franklin, and never marry him till he inspire you with confidence and affection. But remember something is due also to him; and the divine rule of acting toward others as you wish them to act toward you, must be applied here, as in every affair in life. While you should not, I allow, be hurried into a decision, yet your mind once made up, he should not be kept a moment in suspense."
"Do you think, ma'ma," asked Caroline, "that he has much feeling?"
"I think he has. I think him peculiarly gifted with unselfish ardor. That which appears to you coldness, is, in my opinion, the natural reserve of a warm heart—so modest that it rather retires from observation than parades itself before the world. Sentiment and fire, when common on the lips, are not more likely to be native to the soul. It is precisely that calm, that repose you allude to, which forms, in my judgment, the guarantee of Mr. Franklin's sincerity, and the finishing grace of his character—a character in all other respects, also, a true and noble one."
Caroline did not listen without interest.
Mrs. Clifford was a native of New York, and had come over just a year ago to enjoy a tour in Europe. Franklin had been a fellow-passenger; and a sort of intimacy had grown up between the young people, which the gentleman had taken rather au serieux. He had gladly availed himself of an accidental business necessity which called the son and proposed traveling companion of Mrs. Clifford suddenly home, to join her little party, and had accompanied them through Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, and Holland. The result was, that the happiness of his life now appeared to depend upon an affirmative monosyllable in reply to the offer he had just made of his heart and hand. Mrs. Clifford was the widow of a captain in the American navy, who had left her only a moderate income—sufficient, but no more, for the wants of herself and daughter. Mr. Franklin was a lawyer of six-and-twenty, who had been advised to repair the effects of too severe professional application, by change of air, and a year's idleness and travel....