He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope

"If you have not sold yourself for British gold, and for British acres, and for British rank, I have nothing to say against it," said Miss Wallachia Petrie that same evening to her friend Caroline Spalding.

"You know that I have not sold myself, as you call it," said Caroline. There had been a long friendship between these two ladies, and the younger one knew that it behoved her to bear a good deal from the elder. Miss Petrie was honest, clever, and in earnest. We in England are not usually favourably disposed to women who take a pride in a certain antagonism to men in general, and who are anxious to show the world that they can get on very well without male assistance; but there are many such in America who have noble aspirations, good intellects, much energy, and who are by no means unworthy of friendship. The hope in regard to all such women -- the hope entertained not by themselves, but by those who are solicitous for them -- is that they will be cured at last by a husband and half-a-dozen children. In regard to Wallachia Petrie there was not, perhaps, much ground for such hope.