Pride of family and pride of wealth put me as far off from her in
my lady's eyes as if I had been some domesticated creature of
another kind. But they could not put me farther from her than I
put myself when I set my merits against hers. More than that.
They could not put me, by millions of fathoms, half so low beneath
her as I put myself when in imagination I took advantage of her
noble trustfulness, took the fortune that I knew she must possess
in her own right, and left her to find herself, in the zenith of
her beauty and genius, bound to poor rusty, plodding me.

No! Worldliness should not enter here at any cost. If I had tried
to keep it out of other ground, how much harder was I bound to try
to keep it out from this sacred place!

But there was something daring in her broad, generous character,
that demanded at so delicate a crisis to be delicately and
patiently addressed. And many and many a bitter night (O, I found
I could cry for reasons not purely physical, at this pass of my
life!) I took my course.

My lady had, in our first interview, unconsciously overstated the
accommodation of my pretty house. There was room in it for only
one pupil. He was a young gentleman near coming of age, very well
connected, but what is called a poor relation. His parents were
dead. The charges of his living and reading with me were defrayed
by an uncle; and he and I were to do our utmost together for three
years towards qualifying him to make his way. At this time he had
entered into his second year with me. He was well-looking, clever,
energetic, enthusiastic; bold; in the best sense of the term, a