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agreeable guarantee of womanly power; but to become a wife and wear all
the domestic fetters of that condition, was on the whole a vexatious
necessity. Her observation of matrimony had inclined her to think it
rather a dreary state in which a woman could not do what she liked, had
more children than were desirable, was consequently dull, and became
irrevocably immersed in humdrum. Of course marriage was social promotion;
she could not look forward to a single life; but promotions have sometimes
to be taken with bitter herbs--a peerage will not quite do instead of
leadership to the man who meant to lead; and this delicate-limbed sylph of
twenty meant to lead. For such passions dwell in feminine breasts also. In
Gwendolen's, however, they dwelt among strictly feminine furniture, and
had no disturbing reference to the advancement of learning or the balance
of the constitution; her knowledge being such as with no sort of standing-
room or length of lever could have been expected to move the world. She
meant to do what was pleasant to herself in a striking manner; or rather,
whatever she could do so as to strike others with admiration and get in
that reflected way a more ardent sense of living, seemed pleasant to her
fancy.

"Gwendolen will not rest without having the world at her feet," said Miss
Merry, the meek governess: hyperbolical words which have long come to
carry the most moderate meanings; for who has not heard of private persons
having the world at their feet in the shape of some half-dozen items of
flattering regard generally known in a genteel suburb? And words could
hardly be too wide or vague to indicate the prospect that made a hazy
largeness about poor Gwendolen on the heights of her young self-
exultation. Other people allowed themselves to be made slaves of, and to
have their lives blown hither and thither like empty ships in which no
will was present. It was not to be so with her; she would no longer be
sacrificed to creatures worth less than herself, but would make the very
best of the chances that life offered her, and conquer circumstances by
her exceptional cleverness. Certainly, to be settled at Offendene, with
the notice of Lady Brackenshaw, the archery club, and invitations to dine
with the Arrowpoints, as the highest lights in her scenery, was not a
position that seemed to offer remarkable chances; but Gwendolen's
confidence lay chiefly in herself. She felt well equipped for the mastery
of life. With regard to much in her lot hitherto, she held herself rather
hardly dealt with, but as to her "education," she would have admitted that
it had left her under no disadvantages. In the school-room her quick mind
had taken readily that strong starch of unexplained rules and disconnected
facts which saves ignorance from any painful sense of limpness; and what
remained of all things knowable, she was conscious of being sufficiently
acquainted with through novels, plays and poems. About her French and
music, the two justifying accomplishments of a young lady, she felt no

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