hat it was by no effort of her own. We have all
seen those efforts, and it may be that many of us have liked them
when they have been made on our own behalf. But no man as yet could
ever have felt himself to be so far flattered by Miss Lowther. Her
dress was very plain; as it became her that it should be, for she was
living on the kindness of an aunt who was herself not a rich woman.
But it may be doubted whether dress could have added much to her
charms.

She was now turned one-and-twenty, and though, doubtless, there were
young men at Loring who had sighed for her smiles, no young man had
sighed with any efficacy. It must be acknowledged, indeed, that she
was not a girl for whom the most susceptible of young men would sigh.
Young men given to sigh are generally attracted by some outward and
visible sign of softness which may be taken as an indication that
sighing will produce some result, however small. At Loring it was
said that Mary Lowther was cold and repellent, and, on that account,
one who might very probably descend to the shades as an old maid in
spite of the beauty of which she was the acknowledged possessor. No
enemy, no friend, had ever accused her of being a flirt.

Such as she was, Harry Gilmore's passion for her much astonished his
friends. Those who knew him best had thought that, as regarded his
fate matrimonial,--or non-matrimonial,--there were three chances
before him: he might carry out their presumed intention of marrying
money; or he might become the sudden spoil of the bow and spear of
some red-cheeked lass; or he might walk on as an old bachelor, too
cautious to be caught at all. But none believed that he would become
the victim of a grand passion for a poor, reticent, high-bred,
high-minded specimen of womanhood. Such, however, was now his
condition.

He had an uncle, a clergyman, living at Salisbury, a prebendary
there, who was a man of the world, and in whom Harry trusted more
than in any other member of his own family. His mother had been
the sister of the Rev. Henry Fitzackerly Chamberlaine; and as Mr.
Chamberlaine had never married, much of his solicitude was bestowed
upon his nephew.

"Don't, my dear fellow," had been the prebendary's advice when he was
taken over to see Miss Lowther. "She is a lady, no doubt; but you
would never be your own master, and you would be a poor man till you
died. An easy temper and a little money are almost as common in our
rank of life as destitution an