She thought she might in time learn to live with a man whom she did not love, if that was her destiny. Perhaps she would become as adept as Charlotte in fixing her eyes on the practical benefits of a loveless union. But she was not sure she could endure to be tied forever to a husband she could not respect. The marriage of her parents, always before her eyes, demonstrated only too clearly the miserable consequences of such a choice. Where there was no real esteem, contempt and bitterness soon followed.
