Here they had rambled, here they had first tried their
ponies, there they had nearly fallen, there he had quite saved her; here
were the two very elms where St. Maurice made for them a swing, here was
the very keeper's cottage of which she had made for him a drawing, and
which he still retained. Dear girl! And had she disappointed the romance
of his boyhood; had the experience the want of which had allowed him
then to be pleased so easily, had it taught him to be ashamed of those
days of affection? Was she not now the most gentle, the most graceful,
the most beautiful, the most kind? Was she not the most wife-like woman
whose eyes had ever beamed with tenderness? Why, why not at once close a
career which, though short, yet already could yield reminiscences which
might satisfy the most craving admirer of excitement? But there was Lady
Aphrodite; yet that must end. Alas! on his part, it had commenced in
levity; he feared, on hers, it must terminate in anguish. Yet, though he
loved his cousin; though he could not recall to his memory the woman
who was more worthy of being his wife, he could not also conceal from
himself that the feelings which impelled him were hardly so romantic as
he thought should have inspired a youth of one-and-twenty when he mused
on the woman he loved best.
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