ed for her.

Morbid sentiment! Why should she be accused of morbid sentiment
because she was unable to transfer her affections to the man who
had been fixed on as her future husband by the large circle of
acquaintances who had interested themselves in her affairs? There was
nothing morbid in either her desires or her regrets. So she assured
herself, with something very much like anger at the accusation made
against her. She had been contented, and was contented, to live at
home as her mother lived, asking for no excitement beyond that given
by the daily routine of her duties. There could be nothing morbid in
that. She would go back to Allington as soon as might be, and have
done with this London life, which only made her wretched. This seeing
of Crosbie had been terrible to her. She did not tell herself that
his image had been shattered. Her idea was that all her misery had
come from the untowardness of the meeting. But there was the fact
that she had seen the man and heard his voice, and that the seeing
him and hearing him had made her miserable. She certainly desired
that it might never be her lot either to see him or to hear him
again.

And as for John Eames,--in those bitter moments of her reflection she
almost wished the same in regard to him. If he would only cease to
be her lover, he might be very well; but he was not very well to her
as long as his pretensions were dinned into her ear by everybody who
knew her. And then she told herself that John would have a better
chance if he had been content to plead for himself. In this, I think,
she was hard upon her lover. He had pleaded for himself as well as he
knew how, and as often as the occasion had been given to him. It had
hardly been his fault that his case had been taken in hand by other
advocates. He had given no commission to Mrs. Thorne to plead for him.

Poor Johnny. He had stood in much better favour before the lady had
presented her compliments to Miss L. D. It was that odious letter,
and the thoughts which it had forced upon Lily's mind, which were
now most inimical to his interests. Whether Lily loved him or not,
she did not love him well enough to be jealous of him. Had any such
letter reached her respecting Crosbie in the happy days of her young
love, she would simply have laughed at it. It would have been nothing
to her. But now she was sore and unhappy, and any trifle was powerful
enough to irritate her. "Is Miss L. D. engaged to marry Mr. J. E.?"