his requirements. Her first feeling, when she found
herself alone, was one of intense disgust at her own weakness. He had
spoken to her of her ambition; and he had told her that he had found
a place for her, in which that ambition might find a fair scope. And
he had told her also that in reference to John Gordon she had dreamed
a dream. It might be so, but to her thinking the continued dreaming
of that dream would satisfy her ambition better than the performance
of those duties which he had arranged for her. She had her own ideas
of what was due from a girl and to a girl, and to her thinking her
love for John Gordon was all the world to her. She should not have
been made to abandon her thoughts, even though the man had not spoken
a word to her. She knew that she loved him; even though a time might
come when she should cease to do so, that time had not come yet. She
vacillated in her mind between condemnation of the cruelty of Mr
Whittlestaff and of her own weakness. And then, too, there was some
feeling of the hardship inflicted upon her by John Gordon. He had
certainly said that which had justified her in believing that she
possessed his heart. But yet there had been no word on which she
could fall back and regard it as a promise.

It might perhaps be better for her that she should marry Mr
Whittlestaff. All her friends would think it to be infinitely better.
Could there be anything more moonstruck, more shandy, more wretchedly
listless, than for a girl, a penniless girl, to indulge in dreams of
an impossible lover, when such a tower of strength presented itself
to her as was Mr Whittlestaff? She had consented to eat his bread,
and all her friends had declared how lucky she had been to find a
man so willing and so able to maintain her. And now this man did
undoubtedly love her very dearly, and there would be, as she was well
aware, no peril in marrying him. Was she to refuse him because of a
soft word once spoken to her by a young man who had since disappeared
altogether from her knowledge? And she had already accepted him,--had
twice accepted him on that very day! And there was no longer a hope
for escape, even if escape were desirable. What a fool must she be to
sit there, still dreaming her impossible dream, instead of thinking
of his happiness, and preparing herself for his wants! He had told
her that she might be allowed to think of John Gordon, though not to
speak of him. She would neither speak of him nor think