More hearts are broken into indefinite fragments before twenty than ever
after; but, like the broken bones of the young, they usually knit
readily together again, and are just as good for all practical purposes.

There was nothing unusual in the fact, therefore, that Haldane was soon
deeply enamored with his new acquaintance. It was true that Laura had
given him the mildest and most innocent kind of encouragement--and the
result would probably have been the same if she had given him none at
all--but his vanity, and what he chose to regard as his "undying love,"
interpreted all her actions, and gave volumes of meaning to a kindly
glance or a pleasant word. Indeed, before there had been time to carry
out, to any extent, the tactics her aunt had proposed, symptoms of his
malady appeared. While she was regarding him merely as one of her aunt's
"cases," and a very hard one at best, and thought of herself as trying
to help a little, as a child might hold a bandage or a medicine phial
for experienced hands, he, on the contrary, had begun to mutter to
himself that she was "the divinest woman God ever fashioned."

There was now no trouble about his spending evenings elsewhere, and the
maiden was perplexed and annoyed at finding her winning ways far too
successful, and that the one she barely hoped to keep from the
vague--and to her mind, horrible--places of temptation, was becoming as
adhesive as sticking-plaster. If she smiled, he smiled and ogled far too
much in return. If she chatted with one and another of the young men who
found Mrs. Arnot's parlor the most attractive place open to them in the
town, he would assume a manner designed to be darkly tragical, but which
to the young girl had more the appearance of sulking.

She was not so much of a child as to be unable to comprehend Haldane's
symptoms, and she was sufficiently a woman not to be excessively angry.