Read it through once

‘On the other hand it may happen that some suitor, whose rank is not such that he can be considered as a possible husband, may entertain very serious feelings indeed, yet through fear of giving offence may go no further in his communications than to make a few conventional remarks about the weather or the garden. In such a case, if the lady, insisting upon seeing in such epistles more than is actually expressed, administers a rebuff, the result will only be that the affair is henceforward on a footing of passion, not (as hitherto) of formality. A civil answer, couched in the same conventional terms as the original letter, may instead dispel the lover’s romantic notions and lead him to abandon the quest. But whatever happens the lady has done all that ought to be expected of her.