You say you respect him.

I know you admire his conduct, both as a son and brother, and as a man.

What objections are there so great as to call for this decided and instant refusal ?" "Simply because, as a husband, I can never love him." "Never is a long day, Ellen.

You surely have not so much romance in your composition as to refuse a young man possessing every virtue which can make a woman happy, merely because he does not excite any very violent passion?
Do you not know there are some dispositions which never love to the full extent of the word, and yet are perhaps happier in the marriage state than those who do?
Now you may be one of these, Ellen." "It may be so," she said, still calmly, though a deep flush stained her cheek.

Herbert had spoken playfully, but there was that in his words which, to a heart seared as was hers, was productive of intense suffering.
"It may be so perhaps; I shall never meet one to love, as I believe a husband ought to be loved, yet that would not satisfy my conscience for accepting Walter.