of the
circumstances of the Neefit contract, to his niece.

"He could hardly have wished to set her against you."

"I don't know; but he must have told her. She threw it in my teeth
that I ought to marry Polly."

"Then she did not accept you?"

"By George! no;--anything but that. She is one of those women who,
as I fancy, never take a man at the first offer. It isn't that they
mean to shilly and shally and make a fuss, but there's a sort of
majesty about them which instinctively declines to yield itself.
Unconsciously they feel something like offence at the suggestion that
a man should think enough of himself to ask for such a possession.
They come to it, after a time."

"And she will come to it, after a time?"

"I didn't mean to say that. I don't intend, however, to give it up."
Ralph paused in his story, considering whether he would tell his
brother what Mary had confessed to him as to her affection for some
one else, but he resolved, at last, that he would say nothing of
that. He had himself put less of confidence in that assertion than he
did in her rebuke with reference to the other young woman to whom she
chose to consider that he owed himself. It was his nature to think
rather of what absolutely concerned himself, than of what related
simply to her. "I shan't give her up. That's all I can say," he
continued. "I'm not the sort of fellow to give things up readily." It
did occur to Gregory at that moment that his brother had not shown
much self-confidence on that question of giving up the property. "I'm
pretty constant when I've set my mind on a thing. I'm not going to
let any woman break my heart for me, but I shall stick to it."

He was not going to let any woman break his heart for him! Gregory,
as he heard this, knew that his brother regarded him as a man whose
heart was broken, and he could not help asking himself whether or
not it was good for a man that he should be able to suffer as he
suffered, because a woman was fair and yet not fair for him. That his
own heart was broken,--broken after the fashion of which his brother
was speaking,--he was driven to confess to himself. It was not that
he should die, or that his existence would be one long continued hour
of misery to him. He could eat and drink, and do his duty and enjoy
his life. And yet his heart was broken. He could not piece it so that
it should be fit for any other woman. He could not teach himself not
to long for that one woman who would n