Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

42. CHAPTER XLII: ULLATHORNE SPORTS--ACT III (continued)

When he had got so far, Bertie began poling in the gravel with a little cane which he carried. He still kept moving on, but very slowly, and his companion moved slowly by his side, not inclined to assist him in the task the performance of which appeared to be difficult to him.

'Knowing how fond she is of yourself, Mrs Bold, cannot you imagine what scheme should have occurred to her?'

'I can imagine no better scheme, Mr Stanhope, than the one I proposed to you just now.'

'No,' said he, somewhat lack-a-daisically; 'I suppose that would be the best; but Charlotte thinks another plan might be joined with it.--She wants me to marry you.'

A thousand remembrances flashed across Eleanor's mind all in a moment--how Charlotte had talked about and praised her brother, how she had continually contrived to throw the two of them together, how she had encouraged all manner of little intimacies, how she had with singular cordiality persisted in treating Eleanor as one of the family. All this had been done to secure her comfortable income for the benefit of one of the family!

Such a feeling as this is very bitter when it first impresses itself on a young mind. To the old such plots and plans, such matured schemes for obtaining the goods of this world without the trouble of earning them, such long-headed attempts to convert 'tuum' into 'meum' are the ways of life to which they are accustomed. 'Tis thus that many live, and it therefore behoves all those who are well to do in the world be on their guard against those who are not. With them it is the success that disgusts, not the attempt. But Eleanor had not yet learnt to look on her money as a source of danger; she had not begun to regard herself as fair game to be hunted down by hungry gentlemen. She had enjoyed the society of the Stanhopes, she had greatly liked the cordiality of Charlotte, and had been happy in her new friends. Now she saw the cause of all that kindness, and her mind was opened to a new phase of human life.