Shirley

you only the green tempting surface of the marsh, and give not one faithful or truthful hint of the slough underneath.«
    »But it is not always slough,« objected Caroline: »there are happy marriages. Where affection is reciprocal and sincere, and minds are harmonious, marriage
must
be happy.«
    »It is never wholly happy. Two people can never literally be as one: there is, perhaps, a possibility of content under peculiar circumstances, such as are seldom combined; but it is as well not to run the risk: you may make fatal mistakes. Be satisfied, my dear: let all the single be satisfied with their freedom.«
    »You echo my uncle's words!« exclaimed Caroline, in a tone of dismay: »you speak like Mrs. Yorke, in her most gloomy moments: – like Miss Mann, when she is most sourly and hypochondriacally disposed. This is terrible!«
    »No, it is only true. Oh, child! you have only lived the pleasant morning time of life: the hot, weary noon, the sad evening, the sunless night, are yet to come for you! Mr. Helstone, you say, talks as I talk; and I wonder how Mrs. Matthewson Helstone would have talked had she been living. She died! she died!«
    »And, alas! my own mother and father ...« exclaimed Caroline, struck by a sombre recollection.
    »What of them?«
    »Did I never tell you that they were separated?«
    »I have heard it.«
    »They must then have been very miserable.«
    »You see all
facts
go to prove what I say.«
    »In this case there ought to be no such thing as marriage.«
    »There ought, my dear, were it only to prove that this life is a mere state of probation, wherein neither rest nor recompense is to be vouchsafed.«
    »But your own marriage, Mrs. Pryor?«
    Mrs. Pryor shrunk and shuddered as if a rude finger had pressed a naked nerve: Caroline felt she had touched what would not bear the slightest contact.
    »My marriage was unhappy,« said the lady, summoning courage at last; »but yet –« she hesitated.
    »But yet,« suggested Caroline, »not immitigably wretched?«
    »Not in its results, at least. No,« she added, in a softer tone; »God mingles something of the balm of mercy even in vials of the most corrosive woe. He can so turn events, that from the very same blind, rash act whence sprang the curse of half our life, may flow the blessing of the remainder. Then, I am of a peculiar disposition, I own that: far from facile, without address, in some points eccentric. I ought never to have married: mine is not the nature easily to find a duplicate, or likely to assimilate with a contrast. I was quite aware of my own ineligibility; and if I had not been so miserable as a governess, I never should have married; and then –«
    Caroline's eyes asked her to proceed: they entreated her to break the thick cloud of despair, which her previous words had seemed to spread over life.
    »And then, my dear, Mr ––, that is, the gentleman I married, was, perhaps, rather an exceptional than an average character. I hope, at least, the experience of few has been such as mine was, or that few have felt their sufferings as I felt mine. They nearly shook my mind: relief was so hopeless, redress so unattainable: but, my dear, I do not wish to dishearten, I only wish to warn you, and to prove that the single should not be too anxious to change their state, as they may change for the worse.«
    »Thank you, my dear madam, I quite understand your kind intentions; but there is no fear of my falling into the error to which you allude. I, at least, have no thoughts of marriage, and, for that reason, I want to make myself a position by some other means.«
    »My dear, listen to me. On what I am going to say, I have carefully deliberated; having, indeed, revolved the subject in my thoughts ever since you first mentioned your wish to obtain a situation. You know I at present reside with Miss Keeldar in the capacity of companion: should she marry (and that she
will
marry erelong, many circumstances induce me to conclude), I shall cease to be necessary to her in that capacity. I must tell you that I possess a small independency, arising partly from my own savings, and partly from a legacy left me some years since; whenever I leave Fieldhead, I shall take a house of my own: I could not endure to live in solitude: I have no relations whom I care to invite to close intimacy; for, as you must have observed, and as I have already avowed, my habits and tastes have their peculiarities: to you, my dear, I need not say I am attached; with you