Among the acquaintances of Sidney's
boyhood there was not one but had a chosen female companion from the
age of fifteen or earlier; he himself had been no exception to the
rule in his class, but at the time of meeting with Hewett he was
companionless, and remained so. The Hewetts became his closest
friends; in their brief prosperity he rejoiced with them, in their
hardships he gave them all the assistance to which John's pride
would consent; his name was never spoken among them but with warmth
and gratitude. And of course the day came to which Hewett had looked
forward--the day when Sidney could no longer take Clara upon his
knee and stroke her brown hair and joke with her about her fits of
good and ill humour. Sidney knew well enough what was in his
friend's mind, and, though with no sense of constraint, he felt that
this handsome, keen-eyed, capricious girl was destined to be his
wife. He liked Clara; she always attracted him and interested him;
but her faults were too obvious to escape any eye, and the older she
grew, the more was he impressed and troubled by them. The thought of
Clara became a preoccupation, and with the love which at length he
recognised there blended a sense of fate fulfilling itself.
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