could see, he was far away the
nicest and best. That is what you will do when you are in love, if
you be good for anything. She had no longing to sit near to him--the
nearer the better; she had no thought of his taste and his choice
when she bought her ribbons and bonnets; she had no indescribable
desire that all her female friends should be ever talking to her
about him. When she wrote to him, she did not copy her letters again
and again, so that she might be, as it were, ever speaking to him;
she took no special pride in herself because he had chosen her to
be his life's partner. In point of fact, she did not care one straw
about him.

And yet she thought she loved him; was, indeed, quite confident
that she did so; told her mother that she was sure Gustavus would
wish this, she knew Gustavus would like that, and so on; but as for
Gustavus himself, she did not care a chip for him.

She was in love with her match just as farmers are in love with
wheat at eighty shillings a quarter; or shareholders--innocent
gudgeons--with seven and half per cent. interest on their paid-up
capital. Eighty shillings a quarter, and seven and half per cent.
interest, such were the returns which she had been taught to look
for in exchange for her young heart; and, having obtained them, or
being thus about to obtain them, why should not her young heart be
satisfied? Had she not sat herself down obediently at the feet of her
lady Gamaliel, and should she not be rewarded? Yes, indeed, she shall
be rewarded.

And then the doctor went to the lady. On their medical secrets we
will not intrude; but there were other matters bearing on the course
of our narrative, as to which Lady Arabella found it necessary to say
a word or so to the doctor; and it is essential that we should know
what was the tenor of those few words so spoken.

How the aspirations, and instincts, and feelings of a household
become changed as the young birds begin to flutter with feathered
wings, and have half-formed thoughts of leaving the parental nest! A
few months back, Frank had reigned almost autocratic over the lesser
subjects of the kingdom of Greshamsbury. The servants, for instance,
always obeyed him, and his sisters never dreamed of telling anything
which he directed should not be told. All his mischief, all his
troubles, and all his loves were confided to them, with the sure
conviction that they would never be made to stand in evidence against
him.

Trusting to