It was in one of these short meetings, each apparently occupied in admiring a fine display of greenhouse plants, that she said—
"I have been thinking over the past, and trying impartially to judge of the right and wrong, I mean with regard to myself; and I must believe that I was right, much as I suffered from it, that I was perfectly right in being guided by the friend whom you will love better than you do now. To me, she was in the place of a parent. Do not mistake me, however. I am not saying that she did not err in her advice. It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides; and for myself, I certainly never should, in any circumstance of tolerable similarity,give such advice. But I mean, that I was right in submitting to her, and that if I had done otherwise,I should have suffered more in continuing the engagement than I did even in giving it up, because I should have suffered in my conscience. I have now, as far as such a sentiment is allowable in human nature,nothing to reproach myself with; and if I mistake not,a strong sense of duty is no bad part of a woman's portion."