She smiled (and her smile was one
of her strong points) whenever he spoke to her; she went through all
her little artlessnesses and set forth all her little wares in what
she believed to be their most taking aspect. Who can blame her?
Theobald was not the ideal she had dreamed of when reading Byron
upstairs with her sisters, but he was an actual within the bounds of
possibility, and after all not a bad actual as actuals went. What else
could she do? Run away? She dared not. Marry beneath her and be
considered a disgrace to her family? She dared not. Remain at home and
become an old maid and be laughed at? Not if she could help it. She
did the only thing that could reasonably be expected. She was
drowning; Theobald might be only a straw, but she could catch at
him, and catch at him she accordingly did.
If the course of true love never runs smooth, the course of true
match-making sometimes does so. The only ground for complaint in the
present case was that it was rather slow. Theobald fell into the
part assigned to him more easily than Mrs. Cowey and Mrs. Allaby had
dared to hope. He was softened by Christina's winning manners: he
admired the high moral tone of everything she said; her sweetness
towards her sisters and her father and mother, her readiness to
undertake any small burden which no one else seemed willing to
undertake, her sprightly manners, all were fascinating to one who,
though unused to woman's society, was still a human being.
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