establishment of her innocence in the eyes of the household had
little to do; indeed, that threatened at first to destroy something
of her attraction; a passionate, yielding, even erring nature, had
of necessity for such as he far more enchantment than a nature that
ruled its own emotions, and would judge such as might be unveiled to
it. Neither was it that her cold courtesy and kind indifference
roused him to call to the front any of the more valuable endowments
of his being; something far better had commenced: unconsciously to
himself, the dim element of truth that flitted vaporous about in him
had begun to respond to the great pervading and enrounding orb of
her verity. He began to respect her, began to feel drawn as if by
another spiritual sense than that of which Amanda had laid hold. He
found in her an element of authority. The conscious influences to
whose triumph he had been so perniciously accustomed, had proved
powerless upon her, while those that in her resided unconscious were
subduing him. Her star was dominant over his.

At length he began to be aware that this was no light preference, no
passing fancy, but something more serious than he had hitherto
known--that in fact he was really, though uncomfortably and
unsatisfactorily, in love with her. He felt she was not like any
other girl he had made his shabby love to, and would have tried to
make beter to her, but she kept him at a distance, and that he began
to find tormenting. One day, for example, meeting her in the court
as she was crossing towards the keep,--

'I would thou didst take apprentices, cousin,' he said, 'so I might
be one, and learn of thee the mysteries of thy trade.'

'Wherefore, cousin?'