t my father's warning led me to shun Maria's society.
My father and my aunt naturally talked together, and circumstances
almost forced us two into _tete-a-tetes_. I could not fail to see that
Maria liked to be with me, and I found the task of taking care of her
soothing to what I believed to be my blighted feelings. We rode
together (she had an admirable figure and rode well), and the exercise
did her health great good. We often met Mr. Clerke in our rides, and
he seemed to enjoy a canter with us, though he rode very little better
than when I first knew him. We took long walks with Sweep, and from
the oldest tenant to the latest puppy, everything about Dacrefield
seemed to interest my fair cousin. I came at last to believe that Aunt
Maria was right.

When I did come to believe it (and I do not think that any
contemptible conceit made me hasty to do so), other thoughts followed.
I was as firmly convinced as any other young man with my experiences
that I could never again feel what I had felt for the person who shall
be nameless. But the first bitterness of that agony being undoubtedly
over, I felt that I might find a sober satisfaction in making my
father's declining years happy by giving him a daughter-in-law, and
that I was perhaps hardly justified in allowing Maria to fall into a
consumption when I could prevent it. "There are some people," thought
I, "with whom one could spend life very happily in a quiet fashion;
people who would not offend one's taste, or greatly provoke one's
temper, and whom one feels that one could please in like manner.
_Suitable_ people, in fact. And when a fellow has had his great
heart-ache and it's all over, no doubt suitableness is the thing to
make married life happy.... Maria is suitable."

I remember well the day I came to this conclusion. Our visitors had
not yet arrived, but Polly was expected the next day, and Leo and some
others shortly. "I may as well get it over before the house is full,"
I thought. But, to my vexation, I discovered that my father had asked
Mr. Clerke to come up after dinner. "It's his own fault if I don't get
another chance of speaking," thought I. But, as I strolled sullenly on
the terrace (without Maria) a note arrived from the Rector to say that
he was called away to see a sick man. I dashed into the drawing-room,
gave the letter to my father, and seeing Maria was not there, I went
on into the conservatory.

There are moments when even plain people look han