ady's thoughts, there was no getting rid of
him. She wanted to be alone.

'Do you want me here?' she said.

'Now there, there; you want to be off, and have a good cry,' said Miss
Aldclyffe, taking her hand. 'But you mustn't, my dear. There's nothing
in the past for you to regret. Compare Mr. Manston's honourable conduct
towards his wife and yourself, with Springrove towards his betrothed and
yourself, and then see which appears the more worthy of your thoughts.'

3. FROM THE FOURTH OF MAY TO THE TWENTY-FIRST OF JUNE

The next stage in Manston's advances towards her hand was a clearly
defined courtship. She was sadly perplexed, and some contrivance was
necessary on his part in order to meet with her. But it is next to
impossible for an appreciative woman to have a positive repugnance
towards an unusually handsome and gifted man, even though she may not be
inclined to love him. Hence Cytherea was not so alarmed at the sight of
him as to render a meeting and conversation with her more than a matter
of difficulty.

Coming and going from church was his grand opportunity. Manston was very
religious now. It is commonly said that no man was ever converted by
argument, but there is a single one which will make any Laodicean in
England, let him be once love-sick, wear prayer-books and become a
zealous Episcopalian--the argument that his sweetheart can be seen from
his pew.

Manston introduced into his method a system of bewitching flattery,
everywhere pervasive, yet, too, so transitory and intangible, that, as
in the case of the poet Wordsworth and the Wandering Voice, though she
felt it present, she could never find it. As a foil to heighten its
effect, he occasionally spoke philosophically of the evanescence of
female beauty--the worthlessness of mere appearance. 'Handsome is that
handsome does' he considered a proverb which should be written on the
looking-glass of every woman in the land. 'Your form, your motions, your
heart have won me,' he said, in a tone of playful sadness. 'They are
beautiful. But I see these things, and it comes into my mind that they
are doomed, they are gliding to nothing as I look. Poor eyes, poor
mouth, poor face, poor maiden! "Where will her glories be in twenty
years?" I say. "Where will all of her be in a hundred?" Then I think
it is cruel that you should bloom a day, and fade for ever and ever. It
seems hard and sad that you will die as ordinarily as I, and be buried;
be food for roots and