Hannah, on the contrary, demanded no respect, only flattery. If her admirers only _told_ her that she was an angel, she would let them _treat_ her like an idiot. So very credulous and frivolous was she, so very silly did she become when besieged with attention, flattered and admired to the proper degree, that there were moments when Helstone actually felt tempted to commit matrimony a second time, and to try the experiment of taking her for his second helpmeet; but fortunately the salutary recollection of the _ennuis_ of his first marriage, the impression still left on him of the weight of the millstone he had once worn round his neck, the fixity of his feelings respecting the insufferable evils of conjugal existence, operated as a check to his tenderness, suppressed the sigh heaving his old iron lungs, and restrained him from whispering to Hannah proposals it would have been high fun and great satisfaction to her to hear.
It is probable she would have married him if he had asked her; her parents would have quite approved the match. To them his fifty-five years, his bend-leather heart, could have presented no obstacles; and as he was a rector, held an excellent living, occupied a good house, and was supposed even to have private property (though in that the world was mistaken; every penny of the 5,000 inherited by him from his father had been devoted to the building and endowing of a new church at his native village in Lancashire--for he could show a lordly munificence when he pleased, and if the end was to his liking, never hesitated about making a grand sacrifice to attain it)--her parents, I say, would have delivered Hannah over to his lovingkindness and his tender mercies without one scruple; and the second Mrs. Helstone, inverting the natural order of insect existence, would have fluttered through the honeymoon a bright, admired butterfly, and crawled the rest of her days a sordid, trampled worm.

Hannah, on the contrary, demanded no respect, only flattery. If her admirers told her that she was an angel, she would let them treat her like an idiot. So very credulous was she, so very silly when flattered and admired, that there were moments when Helstone actually felt tempted to commit matrimony a second time, and to try the experiment of taking her for his wife; but fortunately the boredom of his first marriage, the memory of the weight of the millstone he had once worn round his neck, checked his tenderness, and restrained him from whispering any proposals to Hannah.
She would probably have married him if he had asked her; her parents would have quite approved the match. To them his fifty-five years and leathery heart would have been no obstacles; and as he was a rector, with an excellent living and a good house, and was supposed to have private property (though in that the world was mistaken; every penny of the 5,000 inherited by him from his father had been devoted to the building of a new church at his native village in Lancashire) - her parents, I say, would have delivered Hannah over to his tender mercies without one scruple; and the second Mrs. Helstone would have fluttered through the honeymoon a bright, admired butterfly, and crawled the rest of her days a sordid, trampled worm.
