e, and that everything must be done to keep her from knowing how
people looked at the affair, even to changing people's minds. She said
to all who spoke to her of it that of course Alice was superior to him,
but he was devoted to her, and he would grow into an equality with
her. He was naturally very refined, she said, and, if he was not a very
serious person, he was amiable beyond anything. She alleged many little
incidents of their acquaintance at Campobello in proof of her theory
that he had an instinctive appreciation of Alice, and she was sure that
no one could value her nobleness of character more than he. She had seen
them a good deal together since their engagement, and it was beautiful
to see his manner with her. They were opposites, but she counted a good
deal upon that very difference in their temperaments to draw them to
each other.

It was an easy matter to see Dan and Alice together. Their engagement
came out in the usual way: it had been announced to a few of their
nearest friends, and intelligence of it soon spread from their own set
through society generally; it had been published in the Sunday papers
while it was still in the tender condition of a rumour, and had been
denied by some of their acquaintance and believed by all.

The Pasmer cousinship had been just in the performance of the duties of
blood toward Alice since the return of her family from Europe, and now
did what was proper in the circumstances. All who were connected with
her called upon her and congratulated her; they knew Dan, the younger of
them, much better than they knew her; and though he had shrunk from the
nebulous bulk of social potentiality which every young man is to that
much smaller nucleus to which definite betrothal reduces him, they could
be perfectly sincere in calling him the sweetest fellow that ever was,
and too lovely to live.

In such a matter Mr. Pasmer was naturally nothing; he could not be less
than he was at other times, but he was not more; and it was Mrs. Pasmer
who shared fully with her daughter the momentary interest which the
engagement gave Alice with all her kindred. They believed, of course,
that they recognised in it an effect of her skill in managing; they
agreed to suppose that she had got Mavering for Alice, and to ignore the
beauty and passion of youth as factors in the case. The closest of
the kindred, with the romantic delicacy of Americans in such things,
approached the question of Dan's position