aiters. He always
had the right clothes. When high collars were the fashion, he wore them
very high. His rivals said that this superstitious reverence for fashion
suggested a revulsion from a past of prehistoric savagery.

Mr. Gatty, on the other hand, had a soul that was higher than any collar.
That, Aggie maintained, was why he always wore the wrong sort. There was
no wrong thing Mr. Gatty could have worn that Aggie would not have found
an excuse for; so assiduously did he minister to the finer part of her. He
shared all her tastes. If she admired a picture or a piece of music or a
book, Mr. Gatty had admired it ever since he was old enough to admire
anything. She was sure that he admired her more for admiring them. She
wasn't obliged to hide those things from Mr. Gatty; besides, what would
have been the use? There was nothing in the soul of Aggie that Mr. Gatty
had not found out and understood, and she felt that there would be no
limit to his understanding.

But what she liked best about him was his gentleness. She had never seen
any young man so gentle as Mr. Gatty.

And his face was every bit as nice as John's. Nicer, for it was
excessively refined, and John's wasn't. You could see that his head was
full of beautiful thoughts, whereas John's head was full of nothing in
particular. Then, Mr. Gatty's eyes were large and spiritual; yes,
spiritual was the word for them. John's eyes were small, and, well,
spiritual would never be the word for _them_.

Unfortunately, John had been on the field first, before the unique
appearance of Mr. Gatty, and Aggie felt that she was bound in honor to
consider him. She had been considering him for some time without any
compulsion. But when things began to look so serious that it really became
a question which of these two she would take, she called in her mother to
help her to decide.

Mrs. Purcell was a comfortable, fat lady, who loved the state of peace she
had been born in, had married into, and had never lost. Aggie was her
eldest daughter, and she was a little vexed to think that she might have
married five years ago if she hadn't been so particular. Meanwhile, what
with her prettiness and her superiority, she was spoiling her younger
sisters' chances. None of her rejected suitors had ever turned to Kate or
Susie or Eliza. They were well enough, poor girls, but as long as Aggie
was there they couldn't help looking plain. But as for deciding between
John Hurst and Mr. Gatty,