please her
aunt; and the small personal services she had been in the way of
rendering to Godfrey were now ministered with the care of a devotee.
Not once should he miss a button from a shirt or find a sock
insufficiently darned! But even this conscience of service did not make
her happy. Duty itself could not, where faith was wanting, where the
heart was not at one with those to whom the hands were servants. She
would cry herself to sleep, and rise early to be sad. She resolved at
last, and seemed to gain strength and some peace from the resolve, to
do all in her power to avoid Tom; and certainly not once did she try to
meet him. Not with him, she could resist him.

Thus it went on. Her aunt saw that something was amiss, and watched
her, without attempt at concealment, which added greatly to Letty's
discomfort. But the only thing her keenness discovered was, that the
girl was forwardly eager to please Godfrey, and the conviction began to
grow that she was indulging the impudent presumption of being in love
with her peerless cousin. Then maternal indignation misled her into the
folly of dropping hints that should put Godfrey on his guard: men were
so easily taken in by designing girls! She did not say much; but she
said a good deal too much for her own ends, when she caused her fancy
to present itself to the mind of Godfrey.

He had not failed, no one could have failed, to observe the dejection
that had for some time ruled every feature and expression of the girl's
countenance. Again and again he had asked himself whether she might not
be fancying him displeased with her; for he knew well that, becoming
more and more aware of what he counted his danger, he had kept of late
stricter guard than ever over his behavior; but, watching her now with
the misleading light of his mother's lantern, nor quite unwilling, I am
bound to confess, that the thing might be as she implied, he became by
degrees convinced that she was right.

So far as this, perhaps, the man was pardonable--with a mother to cause
him to err. But, for what followed, punishment was inevitable. He had a
true and strong affection for the girl, but it was an affection as from
conscious high to low; an affection, that is, not unmixed with
patronage--a bad thing--far worse than it can seem to the heart that
indulges it. He still recoiled, therefore, from the idea of such a
leveling of himself as he counted it would be to show her anything like
the love of a lover