not reason about one, but just watch and try to learn.

We found our level after a time, when she saw that she had just to do
what she liked and how she liked, and that I was as much at her beck and
call as old Rob was at mine. You'll think I was a fool to have had my
head so turned, and maybe I was; but then you must think how little I
was used to women, and how much we were thrown together. Besides she
was a woman in a million, and I can tell you that it was a strong head
that would not be turned by her.

Why, there was Major Elliott, a man that had buried three wives, and had
twelve pitched battles to his name, Edie could have turned him round her
finger like a damp rag--she, only new from the boarding school. I met
him hobbling from West Inch the first time after she came, with pink in
his cheeks and a shine in his eye that took ten years from him. He was
cocking up his grey moustaches at either end and curling them into his
eyes, and strutting out with his sound leg as proud as a piper. What
she had said to him the Lord knows, but it was like old wine in his
veins.

"I've been up to see you, laddie," said he, "but I must home again now.
My visit has not been wasted, however, as I had an opportunity of seeing
_la belle cousine_. A most charming and engaging young lady, laddie."

He had a formal stiff way of talking, and was fond of jerking in a bit
of the French, for he had picked some up in the Peninsula. He would
have gone on talking of Cousin Edie, but I saw the corner of a newspaper
thrusting out of his pocket, and I knew that he had come over, as was
his way, to give me some news, for we heard little enough at West Inch.