relief when neighbours no longer considered the house in and when the chances of seeing alone were very much reduced but that intimacy of mutual embarrassment in which each feels that the other is feeling something having once existed its effect is not to be done away with talk about the weather and other topics is apt to seem a device and behaviour can become easy unless it frankly a mutual fascination � which of course need not mean anything deep or serious this was the way in which and slid gracefully into ease and made their intercourse lively again visitors came and went as usual there was once more music in the drawing room and all the extra hospitality of mr returned whenever he could took his seat s side and lingered to hear her music calling himself her captive � meaning all the while not to be her captive the of the notion that he could at once set up a satisfactory establishment as a married man was a sufficient against danger this play at being a little in love was agreeable and did not interfere with graver pursuits after all was not necessarily a process for her part had never enjoyed the days so much in her life before she was sure of being admired by some one worth and she did not distinguish from love either in or in another she seemed to be sailing with a fair wind just whither she would go and her thoughts were much occupied with a handsome house in gate which she hoped would by and by be vacant she was quite determined when she was married to rid herself of all tne visitors who were not agreeable to her at her father s and she imagined the drawing room in her favourite house with various of furniture certainly her thoughts were much occupied with himself he seemed to her almost perfect if he had known his notes so that his enchantment under ner music had been less like an elephant s and if he had been able to better the of her taste in dress she could hardly have mentioned a deficiency in him how different he was from young or mr those young men had not a notion of french and could speak on no subject with striking knowledge except x the and trades which of course tne r were ashamed to mention they were gentry elated with their and satin to but embarrassed in their manners and timidly even was above them having at least the accent and manner of a university man whereas was always listened to bore himself with the careless politeness of conscious superiority and seemed to have the right clothes on by a certain book in � waiting for death natural without ever having to think about them was proud when he entered the room and when he her with a smile she had a delicious sense that she was the object of homage if had been aware of all the pride he excited in that bosom he might have been just as weu pleased as any other man even the most ignorant of or he held it one of the prettiest attitudes of the feminine mind to a man s pre eminence without too precise a knowledge of what it consisted in but was not one of those helpless girls who betray themselves unawares and whose behaviour is awkwardly driven by their impulses instead of being by wary grace and p bo you imagine that her rapid and concerning house furniture and society were ever in her conversation even with her mamma on the contrary she would have the prettiest surprise and if she had heard that another young lady had been detected m that � indeed would probably have in its possibility for never showed any knowledge and was always that combination of correct sentiments music dancing drawing elegant note writing private for extracted verse and perfect which made the irresistible woman for the doomed man of that date think no unfair evil of her pray she had no wicked plots nothing sordid or in fact she never thought of money except as something necessary which other people would always provide she was not in the habit of and if her statements were no direct clue to fact why they were not intended in that light � they were among her elegant accomplishments intended to please nature had inspired many arts in finishing mrs s favourite pupil who by general consent s was a rare compound of beauty cleverness and found it more and more agreeable to be with her and there was no now there was a delightful of influence in their eyes and what they said had that of meaning for them which is with some sense oi by a third person still they had no or from which a third person need have been excluded in fact they and was secure in the belief that they did else if a man could not love and be wise surely he could and be wise at the same time really the men in except mr were great and did not care about commercial politics or cards what was he to do for he was often invited to the but the girls there were hardly out of the and mrs s way of piety and the of this life and the of cut glass the consciousness at once of filthy rags and the best was not a sufficient relief from the weight of her husband s invariable seriousness the house with all its faults was the plea by contrast besides it nourished � sweet to look at as a half opened blush rose and adorned with accomplishments for the refined amusement of man but he made some enemies other than medical by his success with miss one evening he came into the drawing room rather late when several other visitors were 