. All pride is more or less mean, but one pride may
be grander than another, and Godfrey was not herein proud in any grand
way. Good fellow as he was, he thought much too much of himself; and,
unconsciously comparing it with Letty's, altogether overvalued his
worth. Stranger than any bedfellow misery ever acquainted a man withal,
are the heart-fellows he carries about with him. Noble as in many ways
Wardour was, and kind as, to Letty, he thought he always was, he was
not generous toward her; he was not Prince Arthur, "the Knight of
Magnificence." Something may perhaps be allowed on the score of the
early experience because of which he had resolved--pridefully, it is
true--never again to come under the power of a woman; it was unworthy
of any man, he said, to place his peace in a hand which could
thenceforth wring his whole being with agony. But, had he now brought
himself as severely to task as he ought, he would have discovered that
he was making no objection to the little girl's loving him, only he
would not love her in the same way in return; and where was the honor
in that? Doubtless, had he thus examined himself, he would have thought
he meant to take care that the child's love for him should not go too
far--should not endanger her peace; and that, if the thing should give
her trouble, it should be his business to comfort her in it; but
descend he would not--would not _yet_--from his pedestal, to meet the
silly thing on the level ground of humanity, and the relation of the
man and the woman! Something like this, I say, he would have found in
his heart, horrid as it reads. That heart's action was not even, was
not healthy.

When in London he had ransacked Holywell Street for dainty editions of
so many of his favorite authors as would make quite a little library
for Letty; and on his return, had commissioned a cabinet-maker in
Testbridge to put together a small set of book-shelves, after his own
design, measured and fitted to receive them exactly; these shelves, now
ready, he fastened to her wall one afternoon when she was out of the
way, and filled them with the books. He never doubted that, the moment
she saw them, she would rush to find him; and, when he had done,
retreated, therefore, to his study, there to sit in readiness to
receive her and her gratitude with gentle kindness; when he would
express the hope that she would make real friends of the spirits whose
quintessence he had thus stored to her hand; and wou