ed in marriage.

The King, as aforesaid, was at the neighbouring town, where he had taken
up his abode at Gloucester Lodge and his presence in the town naturally
brought many county people thither. Among these idlers--many of whom
professed to have connections and interests with the Court--was one
Humphrey Gould, a bachelor; a personage neither young nor old; neither
good-looking nor positively plain. Too steady-going to be 'a buck' (as
fast and unmarried men were then called), he was an approximately
fashionable man of a mild type. This bachelor of thirty found his way to
the village on the down: beheld Phyllis; made her father's acquaintance
in order to make hers; and by some means or other she sufficiently
inflamed his heart to lead him in that direction almost daily; till he
became engaged to marry her.

As he was of an old local family, some of whose members were held in
respect in the county, Phyllis, in bringing him to her feet, had
accomplished what was considered a brilliant move for one in her
constrained position. How she had done it was not quite known to Phyllis
herself. In those days unequal marriages were regarded rather as a
violation of the laws of nature than as a mere infringement of
convention, the more modern view, and hence when Phyllis, of the watering-
place bourgeoisie, was chosen by such a gentlemanly fellow, it was as if
she were going to be taken to heaven, though perhaps the uninformed would
have seen no great difference in the respective positions of the pair,
the said Gould being as poor as a crow.

This pecuniary condition was his excuse--probably a true one--for
postponing their union, and as the winter drew nearer, and the King
departed for the season, Mr. Humphrey Gould set out for Bath, promising
to return to Phyllis in a few weeks. The winter arrived, the date of his
promise passed, yet Gould postponed his coming, on the ground that he
could not very easily leave his father in the city of their sojourn, the
elder having no other relative near him. Phyllis, though lonely in the
extreme, was content. The man who had asked her in marriage was a
desirable husband for her in many ways; her father highly approved of his
suit; but this neglect of her was awkward, if not painful, for Phyllis.
Love him in the true sense of the word she assured me she never did, but
she had a genuine regard for him; admired a certain methodical and dogged
way in which he sometimes took his pleasure;