think you can have no reasonable objection to.

Sir, it would ill-become me to dispute your will, answered she,
modestly, but as I yet am very young, and have never had a thought of
marriage, nor even conversed with any who have experienced that fate, I
should be too much at a loss how to behave in it, without being allowed
some time to consider on its respective duties.--I hope therefore, sir,
continued she, you will not oblige me to act with too much precipitation
in an affair on which the happiness or misery of my whole future
life depends.

Your very thinking it of consequence, said he, is enough to make you
behave so, as to allure your happiness with a man of honour; and indeed
Louisa, I love you too well to propose one to you whose principles and
humour I could not answer for as well as my own.

Yet, sir, replied she, I have read that a union of hearts as well as
hands is necessary for the felicity of that state;--that there ought to
be a simpathy of soul between them, and a perfect confidence in each
other, before the indissoluble knot is tied:--and this, according to my
notion, can only be the result of a long acquaintance and accompanied
with many proofs of affection on both sides.

Were all young women to think as you do, said he with a smile, we would
have much fewer marriages; they would indeed be happier; therefore I am
far from condemning your precaution, nor would wish you should give
yourself to one till well assured he was incapable of treating you with
less regard after marriage than before:--no, no, Louisa, I will never
press you to become a wife, till you shall yourself acknowledge the man
I offer to you as a husband is not unworthy of that title, thro' a want