Her opportunities for doing
so were not numerous, but they occurred often enough to test her
disposition. She refused a widower, a man with a genial temperament,
a handsome fortune, and three little girls (he had heard that she was
very fond of children, and he pointed to his own with some
confidence); and she turned a deaf ear to the solicitations of a
clever young lawyer, who, with the prospect of a great practice, and
the reputation of a most agreeable man, had had the shrewdness, when
he came to look about him for a wife, to believe that she would suit
him better than several younger and prettier girls. Mr. Macalister,
the widower, had desired to make a marriage of reason, and had chosen
Catherine for what he supposed to be her latent matronly qualities;
but John Ludlow, who was a year the girl's junior, and spoken of
always as a young man who might have his "pick," was seriously in
love with her. Catherine, however, would never look at him; she made
it plain to him that she thought he came to see her too often. He
afterwards consoled himself, and married a very different person,
little Miss Sturtevant, whose attractions were obvious to the dullest
comprehension. Catherine, at the time of these events, had left her
thirtieth year well behind her, and had quite taken her place as an
old maid. Her father would have preferred she should marry, and he
once told her that he hoped she would not be too fastidious.
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