"Distasteful! and like you again! I think I shall like you again,

and yet again: and I will make you confess I do not only LIKE, but

LOVE you--with truth, fervour, constancy."

"Yet are you not capricious, sir?"

"To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil

when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts--when they open

to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility,

coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent

tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but

does not break--at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent-

-I am ever tender and true."

"Had you ever experience of such a character, sir? Did you ever

love such an one?"

"I love it now."

"But before me: if I, indeed, in any respect come up to your

difficult standard?"

"I never met your likeness. Jane, you please me, and you master me-

-you seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and

while I am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends

a thrill up my arm to my heart. I am influenced--conquered; and the

influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo

has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win. Why do you smile,

Jane? What does that inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance

mean?"

"I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the idea; it was involuntary),

I was thinking of Hercules and Samson with their charmers--"

"You were, you little elfish--"

"Hush, sir! You don't talk very wisely just now; any more than

those gentlemen acted very wisely. However, had they been married,

they would no doubt by their severity as husbands have made up for

their softness as suitors; and so will you, I fear. I wonder how

you will answer me a year hence, should I ask a favour it does not

suit your convenience or pleasure to grant."

"Ask me something now, Jane,--the least thing: I desire to be

entreated--"

"Indeed I will, sir; I have my petition all ready."

"Speak! But if you look up and smile with that countenance, I shall

swear concession before I know to what, and that will make a fool of

me."

"Not at all, sir; I ask only this: don't send for the jewels, and

don't crown me with roses: you might as well put a border of gold

lace round that plain pocket handkerchief you have there."




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