And so it befell that Elizabeth Hand, whose blunt ways, unlovely
person, and temperament so oddly nervous and reserved, kept her from
attracting any "sweetheart" of her own class, had unconsciously
imbibed her mistress's theory of love. Love, pure and simple, the
very deepest and highest, sweetest and most solemn thing in life: to
be believed in devoutly until it came, and when it did come, to be
held to, firmly, faithfully, with a single-minded, settled constancy,
till death. A creed, quite impossible, many will say, in this
ordinary world, and most dangerous to be put into the head of a poor
servant. Yet a woman is but a woman, be she maid-servant or queen;
and if, from queens to maid-servants, girls were taught thus to think
of love, there might be a few more "broken" hearts perhaps, but there
would certainly be fewer wicked hearts; far fewer corrupted lives of
men, and degraded lives of women; far fewer unholy marriages, and
desolated, dreary, homeless homes.

Elizabeth, having cleared away her tea-things, stood listening to the
voices in the parlor, and pondering. She had sometimes wondered in
her own mind that no knight ever came to carry off her charming
princess--her admired and beloved Miss Hilary. Miss Hilary, on her
part, seemed totally indifferent to the youths at Stowbury; who
indeed were, Elizabeth allowed, quite unworthy her regard. The only
suitable lover for her young mistress must be somebody exceedingly
grand and noble--a compound of the best heroes of Shakespeare, Scott,
Fenimore Cooper, Maria Edgeworth, and Harriet Martineau. When this
strange gentleman appeared--in ordinary coat and hat, or rather
Glengary bonnet, neither particularly handsome nor particularly tall,
yet whose coming had evidently given Miss Hilary so much pleasure,
and who, once or twice while waiting at tea, Elizabeth fancied she
had seen looking at Miss Hilary as nobody ever looked before--when