ny was pleasant to her here
among your native mountains, when she knew none but you, that she
will be indifferent to the charms of such a one as you tell me this
Lord Lovel is? She will have regrets,--remorse even; she will sorrow,
because she knows that you have been good to her. But she will yield,
and her life will be happier with him,--unless he be a bad man, which
I do not know,--than it would be with you. Would there be no regrets,
think you, no remorse, when she found that as your wife she had
separated herself from all that she had been taught to regard as
delightful in this world? Would she be happy in quarrelling with her
mother and her new-found relatives? You think little of noble blood,
and perhaps I think as little of it in matters relating to myself.
But she is noble, and she will think of it. As for your money,
Mr. Thwaite, I should make it a matter of mere business with the
Countess, as though there was no question relating to her daughter.
She probably has an account of the money, and doubtless will pay you
when she has means at her disposal."

Daniel left his Mentor without another word on his own behalf,
expressing thanks for the counsel that had been given to him, and
assuring the poet that he would endeavour to profit by it. Then he
walked away, over the very paths on which he had been accustomed to
stray with Anna Lovel, and endeavoured to digest the words that he
had heard. He could not bring himself to see their truth. That he
should not force the girl to marry him, if she loved another better
than she loved him, simply by the strength of her own obligation to
him, he could understand. But that it was natural that she should
transfer to another the affection that she had once bestowed upon
him, because that other was a lord, he would not allow. Not only
his heart but all his intellect rebelled against such a decision. A
transfer so violent would, he thought, show that she was incapable
of loving. And yet this doctrine had come to him from one who, as he
himself had said, had written much of love.

But, though he argued after this fashion with himself, the words of
the old poet had had their efficacy. Whether the fault might be with
the girl, or with himself, or with the untoward circumstances of the
case, he determined to teach himself that he had lost her. He would
never love another woman. Though the Earl's daughter could not be
true to him, he, the suitor, would be true to the Earl's daught