"Yes," said Aunt Hilary, briefly, returning to Dido and Æneas; humble
and easy Latinity for a student of eighteen; but Ascott was not a
brilliant boy, and, being apprenticed early, his education had been
much neglected, till Mr. Lyon came as usher to the Stowbury
grammar-school, and happening to meet and take an interest in him,
taught him and his Aunt Hilary Latin, Greek, and mathematics
together, of evenings.

I shall make no mysteries here. Human nature is human nature all the
world over. A tale without love in it would be unnatural, unreal--in
fact, a simple lie; for there are no histories and no lives without
love in them: if there could be, Heaven pity and pardon them, for
they would be mere abortions of humanity.

Thank Heaven, we, most of us, do not philosophize: we only live. We
like one another, we hardly know why; we love one another, we still
less know why. If on the day she first saw--in church it was--Mr.
Lyon's grave, heavy-browed, somewhat severe face--for he was a
Scotsman, and his sharp, strong Scotch features did look "hard"
beside the soft, rosy, well conditioned youth of Stowbury--if on that
Sunday any one had told Hilary Leaf that the face of this stranger
was to be the one face of her life, stamped upon brain and heart, and
soul with a vividness that no other impressions were strong enough to
efface, and retained there with a tenacity that no vicissitudes of
time, or place, or fortunes had power to alter, Hilary would--yes, I
think she would--have quietly kept looking on. She would have
accepted her lot, such as it was, with its shine and shade, its joy
and its anguish; it came to her without her seeking, as most of the
solemn things in life do; and whatever it brought with it, it could