 1. At the age of twenty-six, Agnes Keeping had never been in love, or ever expected to be, or even wished to be. She rather chose to be in control of her own emotions and her own life, such as it was. At the age of eighteen, she had chosen to marry William Keeping, a neighbouring gentleman of sober address and steady habits and modest means, after he had very properly called upon her father to make his offer, and had then made her a very civil marriage proposal in the presence of her father's second wife. Agnes had been fond of her husband.