up into her
face, with all the power of his eyes, and poor Clarissa could only
blush. She knew what he meant, and knew that she was showing him that
she was conscious. She would have given much not to blush, and not to
have been so manifestly conscious, but she had no power to control
herself. "I might do much better," he said. "Don't you think so?"

As far as she could judge of her own feelings at this moment, in the
absolute absence of any previous accurate thought on the subject, she
fancied that a real, undoubted, undoubting, trustworthy engagement
with Ralph Newton would make her the happiest girl in England. She
had never told herself that she was in love with him; she had never
flattered herself that he was in love with her;--she had never
balanced the matter in her mind as a contingency likely to occur; but
now, at this moment, as he lay there smoking his pipe and looking
full into her blushing face, she did think that to have him for her
own lover would be joy enough for her whole life. She knew that he
was idle, extravagant, fond of pleasure, and,--unsteady, as she in
her vocabulary would be disposed to describe the character which she
believed to be his. But in her heart of hearts she liked unsteadiness
in men, if it were not carried too far. Ralph's brother, the parson,
as to whom she was informed that he possessed every virtue incident
to humanity, and who was quite as good-looking as his brother, had
utterly failed to touch her heart. A black coat and a white cravat
were antipathetic to her. Ralph, as he lay on the green sward, hot,
with linen trousers and a coloured flannel shirt, with a small straw
hat stuck on the edge of his head, with nothing round his throat, and
his jacket over his shoulder, with a pipe in his mouth and an empty
glass beside him, was to her, in externals, the beau-ideal of a
young man. And then, though he was unsteady, extravagant, and idle,
his sins were not so deep as to exclude him from her father's and
her sister's favour. He was there, on the villa lawn, not as an
interloper, but by implied permission. Though she made for herself
no argument on the matter,--not having much time just now for
arguing,--she felt that it was her undoubted privilege to be
made love to by Ralph Newton, if he and she pleased so to amuse
themselves. She had never been told not to be made love to by him. Of
course she would not engage herself without her father's permission.
Of course she would tell P