with pretty girls who have hobbledehoys
among their intimate friends, and who are not themselves unaccustomed
to the grace of an Apollo.

I may as well announce at once that John Eames, when he went up to
London, was absolutely and irretrievably in love with Lily Dale. He
had declared his passion in the most moving language a hundred times;
but he had declared it only to himself. He had written much poetry
about Lily, but he kept his lines safe under double lock and key.
When he gave the reins to his imagination, he flattered himself that
he might win not only her but the world at large also by his verses;
but he would have perished rather than exhibit them to human eye.
During the last ten weeks of his life at Guestwick, while he was
preparing for his career in London, he hung about Allington, walking
over frequently and then walking back again; but all in vain. During
these visits he would sit in Mrs Dale's drawing-room, speaking but
little, and addressing himself usually to the mother; but on each
occasion, as he started on his long, hot walk, he resolved that he
would say something by which Lily might know of his love. When he
left for London that something had not been said.

He had not dreamed of asking her to be his wife. John Eames was about
to begin the world with eighty pounds a year, and an allowance of
twenty more from his mother's purse. He was well aware that with such
an income he could not establish himself as a married man in London,
and he also felt that the man who might be fortunate enough to win
Lily for his wife should be prepared to give her every soft luxury
that the world could afford. He knew well that he ought not to expect
any assurance of Lily's love; but, nevertheless, he thought it
possible that he might give her an assurance of his love. It would
probably be in vain. He had no real hope, unless when he was in
one of those poetic moods. He had acknowledged to himself, in some
indistinct way, that he was no more than a hobbledehoy, awkward,
silent, ungainly, with a face unfinished, as it were, or unripe. All
this he knew, and knew also that there were Apollos in the world who
would be only too ready to carry off Lily in their splendid cars. But
not the less did he make up his mind that having loved her once, it
behoved him, as a true man, to love her on to the end.

One little word he had said to her when they parted, but it had been
a word of friendship rather than of love. He had stray