"I wonder how often it has been settled that I was to be married since I came to Briarfield. They have assigned me every marriageable single woman by turns in the district. Now it was the two Misses Wynns--first the dark, then the light one; now the red-haired Miss Armitage; then the mature Ann Pearson. At present you throw on my shoulders all the tribe of the Misses Sykes. On what grounds this gossip rests God knows. I visit nowhere; I seek female society about as assiduously as you do, Mr. Malone. If ever I go to Whinbury, it is only to give Sykes or Pearson a call in their counting-house, where our discussions run on other topics than matrimony, and our thoughts are occupied with other things than courtships, establishments, dowries. The cloth we can't sell, the hands we can't employ, the mills we can't run, the perverse course of events generally, which we cannot alter, fill our hearts, I take it, pretty well at present, to the tolerably complete exclusion of such figments as love-making, etc."

"I wonder how often it has been settled that I was to be married since I came to Briarfield. They have assigned me every single woman in the district by turns. First it was the two Misses Wynne; then Miss Armitage; then Ann Pearson. At present you throw on my shoulders all the tribe of the Misses Sykes - why, God knows. I visit nowhere; I do not seek female company. If ever I go to Whinbury, it is only to call on Sykes or Pearson in their counting-houses, where we discuss not courtship, but the cloth we can't sell, the hands we can't employ, and the mills we can't run."
