Through life I have been in no bondage, either real or imaginary, from
the thraldom of which I so much desired to be free.... After I had
delayed the matter as long as I thought I could in honor do (which, by
the way, had brought me round into last fall), I concluded I might as
well bring it to a consummation without further delay, and so I mustered
my resolution and made the proposal to her direct; but, shocking to
relate, she answered, No. At first I supposed she did it through an
affectation of modesty, which I thought but ill became her under the
peculiar circumstances of her case, but on my renewal of the charge I
found she repelled it with greater firmness than before. I tried it
again and again, but with the same success, or rather with the same want
of success. I finally was forced to give it up, at which I very
unexpectedly found myself mortified almost beyond endurance. I was
mortified, it seemed to me, in a hundred different ways. My vanity was
deeply wounded by the reflection that I had so long been too stupid to
discover her intentions, and at the same time never doubting that I
understood them perfectly; and also that she, whom I had taught myself
to believe nobody else would have, had actually rejected me with all my
fancied greatness. And, to cap the whole, I then for the first time
began to suspect that I was really a little in love with her.
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