eare, "Othello"}

Nor can I say that Julia Monson enjoyed herself as much as she had
anticipated. Love she did not Betts Shoreham; for that was a passion
her temperament and training induced her to wait for some pretty
unequivocal demonstrations on the part of the gentleman before she
yielded to it; but she LIKED him vastly, and nothing would have been
easier than to have blown this smouldering preference into a flame. She
was too young, and, to say the truth, too natural and uncalculating, to
be always remembering that Betts owned a good old-fashioned landed
estate that was said to produce twenty, and which did actually produce
eleven thousand a year, nett; and that his house in the country was
generally said to be one of the very best in the state. For all this
she cared absolutely nothing, or nothing worth mentioning. There were
enough young men of as good estates, and there were a vast many of no
estates at all, ready and willing to take their chances in the "cutting
up" of "old Monson," but there were few who were as agreeable, as well
mannered, as handsome, or who had seen as much of the world, as Betts
Shoreham. Of course, she had never fancied the young man in love with
herself, but, previously to the impression she had quite recently
imbibed of his attachment to her mother's governess, she had been
accustomed to think such a thing MIGHT come to pass, and that she
should not be sorry if it did.

I very well understand this is not the fashionable, or possibly the
polite way of describing those incipient sentiments which form the germ
of love in the virgin affections of young ladies, and that a skillful
and refined poet would use very different language on the occasion; but
I began this history to represent things as they are, and such is the
manner in which "Love's Young Dream" appears to a pocket-handkerchief.

{"Love's Young Dream" = popular poem by Thomas Moore (1780-1852)}

Among other things that were unpleasant, Miss Monson was compelled to
overhear sundry remarks of Betts's devotion to the governess, as she
stood in the dance, some of which reached me, also.

"Who is the lady to whom Mr. Shoreham is so devoue this evening?" asked
Miss N. of Miss T. "'Tis quite a new face, and, if one might be so
presuming, quite a new manner."

{devoue = devoted, attentive}

"That is Mademoiselle Henny, the governess of Mrs. Monson's children,
my dear. They say she is all accomplishments, and quite a miracle of
pro