"He never proposed to me," I answered; "I never gave him an opportunity."
"Because I liked some one else better," was my reply; and I think those few words settled the whole business.
I shall soon be five-and-twenty now, and on my birthday I am to be married. Aunt Deborah has got better ever since it has all been settled. Everybody seems pleased, and I am sure no one can be better pleased than I am. Only Lady Horsingham says, "Kate will _never_ settle." I think I know better. I think I shall make none the worse a wife because I can walk, and ride, and get up early, and stand all weathers, and love the simple, wholesome, natural pleasures of the country. John thinks so too, and that is all I need care about.
I have such a charming trousseau, though I am ashamed to say I take very little pleasure in looking at it. But kind, thoughtful Cousin John has presented Brilliant with an entirely new set of clothing; and I think my horse seems almost more delighted with his finery than his mistress is with hers. My Cousin and I ride together every day. Dear me, how delightful it is to think that I shall always be as happy as I am now!
A Library of Masterpieces, well printed, well bound in cloth, and unabridged.
Since its publication more than half a century ago, this book has been the only school story which a boy recognizes as true to life.
If the merit of a historical novel be the exact reproduction of the life of another age, then _Esmond_ is the greatest of its class. No other book has caught more perfectly the flavour of the later Stuart times.
Like all Sir Walter Scott's books, _Kenilworth_ is a great picture of a historical epoch, and it is also a very great and wonderful drama.
One of the most brilliant of Scott's romances. It presents a wonderfully powerful and moving picture of the times of Louis the Eleventh.
The most popular novel of Sir Walter Scott, and the first which every boy reads. It has given a living interest to an age which, in other hands, becomes a mere catalogue of conventional antiquities.
The book which made Mrs. Carlyle feel "in charity with the whole human race" could be no ordinary one. _Adam Bede_ contains all George Eliot's broad and catholic knowledge of life, and the characters are all drawn by the hand of a master.