man in the sight of the ladies is always a more attractive person
than a good old man. Dame Hinkley, though no longer young herself,
remembered that she had been so, and preserved all her sympathies,
in consequence, for young people. She thought Alfred Stevens so
handsome, and he smiled so sweetly, and he spoke so genty, and,
in short, so great had been his progress in the affections of his
hostess in the brief space of a single week, that we are constrained
to confess ourselves rejoiced that she herself was an old woman,
as well on her own account as on that of her worthy spouse.

Her good man was very well satisfied, whether from confidence or
indifference, that such should be the case. Her attentions to the
young stranger probably diverted them from himself. But not so with
William Hinkley--the son. We have already had some glimpses of the
character of this young man. We may now add that the short week's
residence of Stevens in Charlemont had increased the soreness at
his heart. In that week he had seen fairly established that intimacy
between his rival and the lady of his love which seemed to give
the death-blow to any pretensions of his. He had seen them meet;
had seen them go forth together; beheld their mutual eyes, and,
turning his own inward, saw how deeply his heart was concerned
in the probable sympathies of theirs. Then, to turn to his own
habitation, and to behold THAT, mother and all, devoted to the same
absolute stranger; to pass unheeded in the presence of those whom
he best loved--over whom natural ties gave him inalienable rights;
to feel himself put aside for one only known of yesterday; to look
with yearning, and meet eyes only of disregard and indifference!
Such being the suggestions of his jealous and suffering nature, it
is surely no matter of wonder that the youth grew melancholy and
abstracted.