This concluded the conversation; for Charlotte
instantly left the room, and was occupied for some
time in giving such orders as her office of assistant
in housekeeping to her mother rendered necessary.
Charlotte Henly was the only child that had been
left from six who were born to her parents, the
others having died in their infancy. The deaths of
the rest of their children had occasioned the
affection of her parents to center in the last of their
offspring with more than common warmth; and the
tenderness of their love was heightened by the
extraordinary qualities of their child. Possessed of
an abundance of the goods of this world, these
doating parents were looking around with intense
anxiety, among their acquaintance, and watching
for the choice that was to determine the worldly
happiness of their daughter.
Charlotte was but seventeen, yet the customs of
the country, and the temptations of her expected
wealth, together with her own attractions, had
already placed her within the notice of the world.
But no symptom of that incipient affection which
was to govern her life, could either of her parents
ever discover; and in the exhibitions of her
attachments, there was nothing to be seen but that
quiet and regulated esteem, which grows out of
association and good sense, and which is so
obviously different from the restless and varying
emotions that are said to belong to the passion of
love.
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