by many an act of kindness, not less than by many a chance
observation, a deep interest in myself and my fortunes. Here, then,
I was--far from the sphere of my duties, neglecting the career I had
adopted, and suffering days, weeks, to pass over without bestowing a
thought upon my soldier life.

Following on this train of thought, I could not help acknowledging to
myself that my attachment to Miss Bellew was the cause of my journey,
and the real reason of my wandering. However sanguine may be the heart
when touched by the first passion, the doubts that will now and then
shoot across it are painful and poignant; and now, in the calmness of my
judgment, I could not but see the innumerable obstacles my family
would raise to all my hopes. I well knew my father's predilection for a
campaigning life, and that nothing would compensate him for the
defeat of this expectation. I had but too many proofs of my mother's
aristocratic prejudices to suppose that she ever could acknowledge as
her daughter-in-law one whose pretensions to rank, although higher
than her own, were yet neither trumpeted by the world nor blazoned
by fashion. And lastly, changed as I was myself since my arrival in
Ireland, there was yet enough of the Englishman left in me to see how
unsuited was Louisa Bellew, in many respects, to be launched forth in
the torrent of London life, while yet her experience of the world was so
narrow and limited. Still, I loved her. The very artless simplicity of
her manner, the untutored freshness of her mind, had taught me to know
that even great personal attractions may be the second excellence of
a woman. And besides, I was just at that time of life when ambition is
least natural. One deems it more heroic to renounce all that is daring
in enterprise, all that is great in promise, merely to be loved. My mind
was therefore made up. The present opportunity was a good one to see her
frequently and learn thoroughly to know her tastes and her dispositions.
Should I succeed in gaining her affections, however opposed my family
might prove at first, I calculated on their fondness for me as an only
son, and knew that in regard to fortune I should be independent enough
to marry whom I pleased.

In speculations such as these the time passed over; and although I
waited with impatience for the hour of our visit to Kilmorran Castle,
still, as the time drew near, many a passing doubt would flit across
me--how far I had mistaken the prompting