accepted?

But what was she to say? Anything but the open truth; she well knew
that. The open truth would not do at all. What would her mother
say and Hetta if she were rashly to say that? Hetta, she knew,
would be dead against such a lover, and of her mother's approbation
she had hardly more hope. Why they should disapprove of Aaron as a
lover she had never asked herself. There are many nice things that
seem to be wrong only because they are so nice. Maybe that Susan
regarded a lover as one of them. "Oh, Mr. Dunn, you shouldn't."
That in fact was all that she could say.

"Should not I?" said he. "Well, perhaps not; but there's the truth,
and no harm ever comes of that. Perhaps I'd better not ask you for
an answer now, but I thought it better you should know it all. And
remember this--I only care for one thing now in the world, and that
is for your love." And then he paused, thinking possibly that in
spite of what he had said he might perhaps get some sort of an
answer, some inkling of the state of her heart's disposition towards
him.

But Susan had at once resolved to take him at his word when he
suggested that an immediate reply was not necessary. To say that
she loved him was of course impossible, and to say that she did not
was equally so. She determined therefore to close at once with the
offer of silence.

When he ceased speaking there was a moment's pause, during which he
strove hard to read what might be written on her down-turned face.
But he was not good at such reading. "Well, I guess I'll go and get