“There is no hurry on my side. I am only ready whenever you are. I am in very good anchorage here,” (smiling at Anne,) “well supplied, and want for nothing. No hurry for a signal at all. Well, Miss Elliot,” (lowering his voice,) “as I was saying we shall never agree, I suppose, upon this point. No man and woman, would, probably. But let me observe that all histories are against you--all stories, prose and verse. If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side the argument, and I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy.

Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.