What was the hurry – unless the man in question wanted her money?
Why could he not wait and become friends?
He could then discover if they were really in love with each other.
There was only one answer to that.
The over-eager suitors were afraid some other man would get there before them.
‘Getting there,’ meant having control of her money.
‘Supposing I was penniless?’ she asked herself one night. ‘I wonder what would have happened then?’
She had just returned from a ball, having received three proposals of marriage.
She knew the truth of each one and it was very humiliating.
Now she told herself, as she opened a window in her mother and father’s bedroom, that she was really home.
The people here had loved her before she was rich.
They would not love her anymore because she had s
