o was manly, generous, and strong.
But after looking into the eyes of the young Earl, seeing how soft
was the down upon his lips, how ruddy the colour of his cheek, how
beautiful was his mouth with its pearl-white teeth, how noble the
curve of his nostrils, after feeling the softness of his hand, and
catching the sweetness of his breath, she came to know what it might
have been to be wooed by such a one as he.

But not on that account did she meditate falseness. It was settled
firm as fate. The dominion of the tailor over her spirit had lasted
in truth for years. The sweet, perfumed graces of the young nobleman
had touched her senses but for a moment. Had she been false-minded
she had not courage to be false. But in truth she was not
false-minded. It was to her, as that sunny moment passed across her,
as to some hard-toiling youth who, while roaming listlessly among
the houses of the wealthy, hears, as he lingers on the pavement of
a summer night, the melodies which float upon the air from the open
balconies above him. A vague sense of unknown sweetness comes upon
him, mingled with an irritating feeling of envy that some favoured
son of Fortune should be able to stand over the shoulders of that
singing syren, while he can only listen with intrusive ears from the
street below. And so he lingers and is envious, and for a moment
curses his fate,--not knowing how weary may be the youth who stands,
how false the girl who sings. But he does not dream that his life is
to be altered for him, because he has chanced to hear the daughter of
a duchess warble through a window. And so it was with this girl. The
youth was very sweet to her, intensely sweet when he told her that he
would be a brother, perilously sweet when he bade her not to grudge
him one kiss. But she knew that she was not as he was. That she had
lost the right, could she ever have had the right, to live his life,
to drink of his cup, and to lie on his breast. So she passed on,
as the young man does in the street, and consoled herself with the
consciousness that strength after all may be preferable to sweetness.

And she was an honest girl from her heart, and prone to truth, with a
strong glimmer of common sense in her character, of which her mother
hitherto had been altogether unaware. What right had her mother to
think that she could be fit to be this young lord's wife, having
brought her up in the companionship of small traders in Cumberland?
She never blamed he