had become, and how
her lips quivered. Mrs. Campion had enough knowledge of life to feel
aware that she had committed a grievous blunder. In that earliest stage
of virgin affection, when a girl is unconscious of more than a certain
vague interest in one man which distinguishes him from others in her
thoughts,--if she hears him unjustly disparaged, if some warning against
him is implied, if the probability that he will never be more to her
than a passing acquaintance is forcibly obtruded on her,--suddenly that
vague interest, which might otherwise have faded away with many another
girlish fancy, becomes arrested, consolidated; the quick pang it
occasions makes her involuntarily, and for the first time, question
herself, and ask, "Do I love?" But when a girl of a nature so delicate
as that of Cecilia Travers can ask herself the question, "Do I love?"
her very modesty, her very shrinking from acknowledging that any power
over her thoughts for weal or for woe can be acquired by a man, except
through the sanction of that love which only becomes divine in her eyes
when it is earnest and pure and self-devoted, makes her prematurely
disposed to answer "yes." And when a girl of such a nature in her own
heart answers "yes" to such a question, even if she deceive herself at
the moment, she begins to cherish the deceit till the belief in her love
becomes a reality. She has adopted a religion, false or true, and she
would despise herself if she could be easily converted.

Mrs. Campion had so contrived that she had forced that question upon
Cecilia, and she feared, by the girl's change of countenance, that the
girl's heart had answered "yes."

CHAPTER XVIII.

WHILE the conversation just narrated took place, Kenelm had walked forth
to pay a visit to Will Somers. All obstacles to Will's marriage were now
cleared away; the transfer of lease for the shop had been signed, and
the banns were to be published for the first time on the following
Sunday. We need not say that Will was very happy. Kenelm then paid a
visit to Mrs. Bowles, with whom he stayed an hour. On reentering the
Park, he saw Travers, walking slowly, with downcast eyes and his hands
clasped behind him (his habit when in thought). He did not observe
Kenelm's approach till within a few feet of him, and he then greeted his
guest in listless accents, unlike his usual cheerful tones.

"I have been visiting the man you have made so happy," said Kenelm.

"Who can that be?"