onsiderations apart--who was socially a little his superior, and could
make a link for him with the great families of England. Had Nan been the
pretty governess whom he thought her at first, not all her charm, her
talent and her originality of character, would have prevailed to make
him marry her.

But in spite of these defects, when once his judgment had assented, he
gave free rein to his heart. Nan satisfied his taste and his intellect,
to begin with; his senses were equally well content with her beauty; and
then--then--another kind of emotion came into play. He was a little
vexed and impatient with himself at first, to find the difference that
she made in his life. She interested him profoundly, and he had never
been profoundly interested in any woman before. Her earnestness charmed
while it half-repelled him. And her refinement, her delicacy of feeling,
her high standard of morality, perpetually astonished him. He remembered
that he had heard his sister Lettice talk as Nan sometimes talked. With
Lettice he had pooh-poohed her exalted ideas and thought them womanish;
in Nan, he was inclined to call them beautiful. Of course, he said to
himself, her ideas did not affect him; men could not guide their lives
by a woman's standard; nevertheless, her notions were pretty, although
puritanical; and he had no desire to see them changed. He would not have
Nan less conscientious for the world.

An appeal to Sydney's self-love had always been a direct appeal to his
heart. It was sometimes said of him that he cared for others chiefly in
proportion as they conferred benefits and advantages upon himself; but
he was certainly capable of warm affection when it had been called into
existence. He began to display a very real and strong affection for Nan.
She had found the way to his heart--though she little suspected
it--through his very weaknesses: she had conquered the man she loved by
means of his selfishness. The worldly advantages she conferred took his
nature by storm. It was not a high-minded way of contracting an
engagement for life; but, as a fragrant flower may easily grow upon a
very unpleasant dunghill, so the sweet flower of a true, pure love began
to flourish on the heap of refuse with which the good in Sydney's nature
had been overlaid.

Sydney was treated with considerable generosity by Nan's guardian and
trustees. Her fortune was of course to remain largely at her own
disposal; but an ambitious man like Sydney Campi