irl would much more often be
right to refuse an offer of marriage than to accept it, let him who
made the offer be who he might. And the fact of the man having been
sent away with a refusal somewhat softened Priscilla's anger at his
coming there at all.

"I suppose he is a goose," said she to her mother, "and I hope there
won't be any more of this kind running after them while they are with
us."

Nora, when she was alone, wept till her heart was almost broken. It
was done, and the man was gone, and the thing was over. She had quite
sufficient knowledge of the world to realise perfectly the difference
between such a position as that which had been offered to her, and
the position which in all probability she would now be called upon to
fill. She had had her chance, and Fortune had placed great things at
her disposal. It must be said of her also that the great things which
Fortune had offered to her were treasures very valuable in her eyes.
Whether it be right and wise to covet or to despise wealth and rank,
there was no doubt but that she coveted them. She had been instructed
to believe in them, and she did believe in them. In some mysterious
manner of which she herself knew nothing, taught by some preceptor
the nobility of whose lessons she had not recognised though she had
accepted them, she had learned other things also,--to revere truth
and love, and to be ambitious as regarded herself of conferring the
gift of her whole heart upon some one whom she could worship as a
hero. She had spoken the simple truth when she had told her sister
that she had been willing to sell herself to the devil, but that
she had failed in her attempt to execute the contract. But now as
she lay weeping on her bed, tearing herself with remorse, picturing
to herself in the most vivid colours all that she had thrown away,
telling herself of all that she might have done and all that she
might have been, had she not allowed the insane folly of a moment
to get the better of her, she received little or no comfort from
the reflection that she had been true to her better instincts. She
had told the man that she had refused him because she loved Hugh
Stanbury;--at least, as far as she could remember what had passed,
she had so told him. And how mean it was of her to allow herself to
be actuated by an insane passion for a man who had never spoken to
her of love, and how silly of her afterwards to confess it! Of what
service could such a passion be t