e one of Canova's marbles as aught else."

"Was Mary Cave in that style?"

"Far grander!--less lass-like and flesh-like. You wondered why she
hadn't wings and a crown. She was a stately, peaceful angel was my
Mary."

"And you could not persuade her to love you?"

"Not with all I could do, though I prayed Heaven many a time, on my
bended knees, to help me."

"Mary Cave was not what you think her, Yorke. I have seen her picture at
the rectory. She is no angel, but a fair, regular-featured,
taciturn-looking woman--rather too white and lifeless for my taste. But,
supposing she had been something better than she was----"

"Robert," interrupted Yorke, "I could fell you off your horse at this
moment. However, I'll hold my hand. Reason tells me you are right and I
am wrong. I know well enough that the passion I still have is only the
remnant of an illusion. If Miss Cave had possessed either feeling or
sense, she could not have been so perfectly impassible to my regard as
she showed herself; she must have preferred me to that copper-faced
despot."

"Supposing, Yorke, she had been educated (no women were educated in
those days); supposing she had possessed a thoughtful, original mind, a
love of knowledge, a wish for information, which she took an artless
delight in receiving from your lips, and having measured out to her by
your hand; supposing her conversation, when she sat at your side, was
fertile, varied, imbued with a picturesque grace and genial interest,
quiet flowing but clear and bounteous; supposing that when you stood
near her by chance, or when you sat near her by design, comfort at once
became your atmosphere, and content your element; supposing that
whenever her face was under your gaze, or her idea filled your thoughts,
you gradually ceased to be hard and anxious, and pure affection, love of
home, thirst for sweet discourse, unselfish longing to protect and
cherish, replaced the sordid, cankering calculations of your trade;
supposing, with all this, that many a time, when you had been so happy
as to possess your Mary's little hand, you had felt it tremble as you
held it, just as a warm little bird trembles when you take it from its
nest; supposing you had noticed her shrink into the background on your
entrance into a room, yet if you sought her in her retreat she welcomed
you with the sweetest smile that ever lit a fair virgin face, and only
turned her eyes from the encounter of your own lest their clearnes