Human affections do not bloom, nor do human passions glow for me." Other women have such thoughts.

Frances, had she been as desolate as she deemed, would not have been worse off than thousands of her sex.

Look at the rigid and formal race of old maids--the race whom all despise; they have fed themselves, from youth upwards, on maxims of resignation and endurance.
Many of them get ossified with the dry diet; self-control is so continually their thought, so perpetually their object, that at last it absorbs the softer and more agreeable qualities of their nature; and they die mere models of austerity, fashioned out of a little parchment and much bone.

Anatomists will tell you that there is a heart in the withered old maid's carcase--the same as in that of any cherished wife or proud mother in the land.

Can this be so?
I really don't know; but feel inclined to doubt it.
I came forward, bade Frances "good evening," and took my seat.