William Haughton were very welcome to me. They were somewhat older than
I,--John twenty-two, and William two years younger; and I was thus just
able to escape regarding them with that profound contempt which the
girl of fifteen usually feels for "boys." After knowing them awhile I
felt how baseless such contempt would be; for they possessed a depth
and maturity of character rarely seen except in men of much experience.
John was grave and thoughtful; his livelier brother often said he had
come into the world some centuries too late,--that he was meant for an
Augustine or a Pascal, so studious was he, and so saintly. Do not fancy
that he was one of those stiff, bespectacled, pedantic youths who
cannot open their lips without a classic allusion or a Greek quotation;
nothing could be farther from the truth. He was quiet and retiring;
very few guessed how beneath that exterior, so unassuming, lay hid the
noblest aspirations, the most exalted thought. It was John I should
have loved.

But it was William who won my heart, even without an effort. I, the
pale, serious girl, loved with a wild idolatry the gay and careless
youth. Never, from that day till now, have I seen a man so perfect in
all manly beauty. Strength and symmetry were united in his tall,
athletic figure; his features were large, but nobly formed; his hair,
of a sunny hue, fell in rich masses over a broad, white brow. So might
Apollo have looked in the flush of his immortal youth.

At first I gazed at him only with the enthusiasm which his extreme
beauty might well awaken in the heart of a romantic maiden; then I grew
to see in the princely type of that beauty a reflection of his mind.
Did ever any fond fool so dote upon her Ideal as I on mine? All
generous thoughts, all noble deeds, seemed only the fit expression of
his nature. Then I came to mingle a reverence with my admiration. We