“I have done that,” replied Edward.  “For ourselves, we can have nothing to expect from his presence with us, except pleasure and advantage.  I will say nothing of the expense.  In any case, if he came to us, it would be but small; and you know he will be of no inconvenience to us at all.  He can have his own rooms in the right wing of the castle, and everything else can be arranged as simply as possible.  What shall we not be thus doing for him! and how agreeable and how profitable may not his society prove to us!  I have long been wishing for a plan of the property and the grounds.  He will see to it, and get it made.  You intend yourself to take the management of the estate, as soon as our present steward’s term is expired; and that, you know, is a serious thing.  His various information will be of immense benefit to us; I feel only too acutely how much I require a person of this kind.  The country people have knowledge enough, but their way of imparting it is confused, and not always honest.  The students from the towns and universities are sufficiently clever and orderly, but they are deficient in personal experience.  From my friend, I can promise myself both knowledge and method, and hundreds of other circumstances I can easily conceive arising, affecting you as well as me, and from which I can foresee innumerable advantages.  Thank you for so patiently listening to me.  Now, do you say what you think, and say it out freely and fully; I will not interrupt you.”

“Very well,” replied Charlotte; “I will begin at once with a general observation.  Men think most of the immediate—­the present; and rightly, their calling being to do and to work; women, on the other hand, more of how things hang together in life; and that rightly too, because their destiny—­the destiny of their families—­is bound up in this interdependence, and it is exactly this which it is their mission to promote.  So now let us cast a glance at our present and our past life; and you will acknowledge that the invitation of the Captain does not fall in so entirely with our purposes, our plans, and our arrangements.  I will go back to those happy days of our earliest intercourse.  We loved each other, young as we then were, with all our hearts.  We were parted:  you from me—­your father, from an insatiable desire of wealth, choosing to marry you to an elderly and rich lady; I from you, having to give my hand, without any especial motive, to an excellent man, whom I respected, if I did not love.  We became again free—­you first, your poor mother at the same time leaving you in possession of your large fortune; I later, just at the time when you returned from abroad.  So we met once more.  We spoke of the past; we could enjoy and love the recollection of it; we might have been contented, in each other’s society, to leave things as they were.  You were urgent for our marriage.  I at first hesitated.  We were about the same age; but I as a woman had grown older than you as a man.  At last I could not