how
could Mary remain unmoved? What could her heart want more, better,
more beautiful, more rich than such a love as his? Was he not
personally all that a girl could like? Were not his disposition,
mind, character, acquirements, all such as women most delight to
love? Was it not impossible that Mary should be indifferent to him?

So meditated the doctor as he rode along, with only too true a
knowledge of human nature. Ah! it was impossible, it was quite
impossible that Mary should be indifferent. She had never been
indifferent since Frank had uttered his first half-joking word of
love. Such things are more important to women than they are to men,
to girls than they are to boys. When Frank had first told her that he
loved her; aye, months before that, when he merely looked his love,
her heart had received the whisper, had acknowledged the glance,
unconscious as she was herself, and resolved as she was to rebuke his
advances. When, in her hearing, he had said soft nothings to Patience
Oriel, a hated, irrepressible tear had gathered in her eye. When he
had pressed in his warm, loving grasp the hand which she had offered
him as a token of mere friendship, her heart had forgiven him the
treachery, nay, almost thanked him for it, before her eyes or
her words had been ready to rebuke him. When the rumour of his
liaison with Miss Dunstable reached her ears, when she heard of
Miss Dunstable's fortune, she had wept, wept outright, in her
chamber--wept, as she said to herself, to think that he should be so
mercenary; but she had wept, as she should have said to herself, at
finding that he was so faithless. Then, when she knew at last that
this rumour was false, when she found that she was banished from
Greshamsbury for his sake, when she was forced to retreat with her
friend Patience, how could she but love him, in that he was not
mercenary? How could she not love him in that he was so faithful?

It was impossible that she should not love him. Was he not the
brightest and the best of men that she had ever seen, or was like
to see?--that she could possibly ever see, she would have said to
herself, could she have brought herself to own the truth? And then,
when she heard how true he was, how he persisted against father,
mother, and sisters, how could it be that that should not be a merit
in her eyes which was so great a fault in theirs? When Beatrice, with
would-be solemn face, but with eyes beaming with feminine affection,
would