temperament. It was almost as impossible for him to avoid or conceal his
preference for younger and more attractive women, as for my mother to
conquer the fretting vexation this preference caused to her.

Next to my mother, came Julia, my cousin, five years older than I, who
had coldly looked down upon me, and snubbed me like a sister, as a boy;
watched my progress through Elizabeth College, and through Guy's
Hospital; and perceived at last that I was a young man whom it was no
disgrace to call cousin. To crown all, she fell in love with me; so at
least my mother told me, taking me into her confidence, and speaking
with a depth of pleading in her sunken eyes, which were worn with much
weeping. Poor mother! I knew very well what unspoken wish was in her
heart. Julia had grown up under her care as I had done, and she stood
second to me in her affection.

It is not difficult to love any woman who has a moderate share of
attractions--at least I did not find it so then. I was really fond of
Julia, too--very fond. I knew her as intimately as any brother knows his
sister. She had kept up a correspondence with me all the time I was at
Guy's, and her letters had been more interesting and amusing than her
conversation generally was. Some women, most cultivated women, can write
charming letters; and Julia was a highly-cultivated woman. I came back
from Guy's with a very greatly-increased regard and admiration for my
cousin Julia.

So, when my mother, with her pleading, wistful eyes, spoke day after day
of Julia, of her dutiful love toward her, and her growing love for me, I
drifted, almost without an effort of my own volition, into an engagement
with her. You see there was no counter-balance. I was acquainted with
every girl on the island of my own class; pretty girls were many of