solid information, moral philosophy and natural history--so sure to
regulate her watch and her heart to the precise moment, for the one to
strike, and the other to throb--and to marry at last a respectable steady
husband, whom she will win with dignity, and would lose with decorum! A
very superior girl indeed." 

["Darrell speaks--not the author.  Darrell is unjust to the more
exquisite female characters of a Novelist, admirable for strength of
sense, correctness of delineation, terseness of narrative, and
lucidity of style-nor less admirable for the unexaggerated nobleness
of sentiment by which some of her heroines are notably
distinguished.] 

"Though your description of Miss Vipont is satirical," said Alban Morley,
smiling, in spite of some irritation, "yet I will accept it as panegyric;
for it conveys, unintentionally, a just idea of the qualities that make
an intelligent coinpanion and a safe wife.  And those are the qualities
we must look to, if we marry at our age.  We are no longer boys," added
the Colonel sententiously.