But though thus rigid and austere, I never heard that she was at all disinclined to being courted: especially if it gave her any prospect of being able to make herself useful as a wife, either to herself, her husband, or her country. She understood the art of rearing and managing children, in her capacity as a teacher: she was thus peculiarly well-fitted for matrimonial duties, and was unwilling that the world should lose the benefit of her talents. But the man who courted her must do so in the most sober, staid, and regulated spirit, for it was seldom any unmixed romance about "love and nonsense," which moved _her_ to the sacrifice: if she entertained notions of that sort, they were such only as could find a place in her well-balanced mind, and, above all, were the subject of no raptures or transports of delight. If she indulged any enthusiasm, in view of the approaching change, it was in the prospect of endless shirt-making, and in calculations about how cheaply (not how happily) she could enable her husband to live. She had no squeamish delicacy about allowing the world to know the scope and meaning of her arrangements, and all her friends participated in her visions of comfort and economy. False modesty was no part of her nature--and her sentiment could be reduced to an algebraic formula--excluding the "unknown quantities" usually represented by the letters _b_, _c_, and _d_: meaning "bliss," "cottages," and "devotion." Yet, though she cared little for poetry, and seldom understood the images of fancy, she was not averse to a modicum of scandal in moments of relaxation: for the faults of others were the illustrations of her prudent maxims, and the thoughtlessness of a sister was the best possible text for a moral homily. The tense rigidity of her character, too, sometimes required a little unbending, and she had, therefore, no special aversion to an occasional surreptitious novel. But this she would indulge only in private; for in her mind, the worst quality of transgression was its bad example; and she never failed, in public, to condemn all such things with becoming and virtuous severity. Nor must this apparent inconsistency be construed to her disadvantage; for her strong mind and well-fortified morals, could withstand safely what would have corrupted a large majority of those around her; and it was meet, that one whose "mission" it was to reform, should thoroughly understand the enemy against which she battled. And these things never unfavorably affected her life and manners, for she was as prudent in her deportment (ill-natured people say _prudish_) as if some ancestress of hers had been deceived, and left in the family a tradition of man's perfidy and woman's frailty.