Well, he saw us to the door of our house, to use the homely phrase, and on the following afternoon he called upon us; but if it was love at first sight on his part, I cannot say that he illustrated his fervour by his behaviour. He was very polite, very kind, very attentive; seemed happy in my society, was a frequent visitor at our house, would steal an hour from business to find himself an excuse to meet us in the gardens or park where we walked; but that was all.
If I had been led by the reading of novels to suppose that a man looks love when he means love, I might have searched Mr. Campbell’s face in vain for any expression of deep-seated sentiment. Indeed, after three months, I could not have said that he was more in love with me than with my sister. But by the end of that time I must own that I was very much in love with him. And though so tenderly did I love my sister that I would gladly have relinquished him to her, had her love for him been as mine, yet to no other woman could I have parted with him without the belief--which to be sure I used to laugh at after I was married--that my heart would break if he did not make me his. But my heart was not to be broken because of his not loving me and making me his, for within six months from the date of our meeting we were married, and I was the happiest girl in all England, and my sister as happy as I in my happiness.
My husband was a solicitor. His practice in those days was small and would not have supported him even as a bachelor; but he had been the only son of a man who was able to leave him an income of several hundreds a year. We went abroad for a month, and I returned to find my poor mother dead. This loss left my sister without a relative in the world saving myself. It is seldom that this can be said of man or woman. To be without a relative in this complicated world of aunts and uncles, of nieces and nephews, and of cousins no matter how far removed, seems incredible. There may be plenty of people who are alone in the sense of not knowing who their relatives are, though they would find they had relations in plenty were they to seek them or were they to come into a fortune; but it is rare indeed to hear of anyone who out of his or her perfect knowledge of the family connections can positively assert, ‘I have not a relative in the world.’