f excellence in others, denotes an equal
excellence in yourself."

"I know my own great inferiority now, and no kindness of yours, Sir
George Templemore, can ever persuade me into a better opinion of
myself. Eve has travelled, seen much in Europe that does not exist
here, and, instead of passing her youth in girlish trifling, has
treated the minutes as if they were all precious, as she well knew
them to be."

"If Europe, then, does indeed possess these advantages, why not
yourself visit it, dearest Miss Van Cortlandt?"

"I--I a Hajji!" cried Grace with childish pleasure, though her colour
heightened, and, for a moment, Eve and her superiority was forgotten.

Certainly Sir George Templemore did not come out on the lake that day
with any expectation of offering his baronetcy, his fair estate, with
his hand, to this artless, half-educated, provincial, but beautiful
girl. For a long time he had been debating with himself the propriety
of such a step, and it is probable that, at some later period, he
would have sought an occasion, had not one now so opportunely
offered, notwithstanding all his doubts and reasonings with himself.
If the "woman who hesitates is lost," it is equally true that the man
who pretends to set up his reason alone against beauty, is certain to
find that sense is less powerful than the senses. Had Grace Van
Cortlandt been more sophisticated, less natural, her beauty might
have failed to make this conquest; but the baronet found a charm in
her _naivete_, that was singularly winning to the feelings of a man
of the world. Eve had first attracted him by the same quality; the
early education of American females being less constrained and
artificial than that of the English; but in Eve he found a mental
training and acquisitions that left the quality less conspicuous,
perhaps, than in her scarcely less beautiful cousin; though, had Eve
met his admiration with any thing like sympathy, her power over him
would not have been easily weakened. As it was, Grace had been
gradually winding herself around his affections, and he now poured
out his love, in a language that her unpractised and already
favourably disposed feelings had no means of withstanding. A very few
minutes were allowed to them, before the summons to the boat; but
when this summons came, Grace rejoined the party, elevated in her own
good opinion, as happy as a cloudless future could make her and
without another thought of the immeasurable superi