however, was still long enough to compel the cousins to know more of
each other than twelve months of ordinary circumstance would have made
possible.

George, feeling neither the need, nor, therefore, the joy of the new
relationship so much as Alexa, disappointed her by the coolness of his
response to her communication of the fact; and as they were both formal,
that is, less careful as to the reasonable than as to the conventional,
they were not very ready to fall in love. Such people may learn all
about each other, and not come near enough for love to be possible
between them. Some people approximate at once, and at once decline to
love, remaining friends the rest of their lives. Others love at once;
and some take a whole married life to come near enough, and at last
love. But the reactions of need and ministration can hardly fail to
breed tenderness, and disclose the best points of character.

The cousins were both handsome, and--which was of more consequence--each
thought the other handsome. They found their religious opinions closely
coincident--nor any wonder, for they had gone for years to the same
church every Sunday, had been regularly pumped upon from the same
reservoir, and had drunk the same arguments concerning things true and
untrue.

George found that Alexa had plenty of brains, a cultivated judgment, and
some knowledge of literature; that there was no branch of science with
which she had not some little acquaintance, in which she did not take
some small interest. Her father's teaching was beyond any he could have
procured for her, and what he taught she had learned; for she had a love
of knowing, a tendency to growth, a capacity for seizing real points,
though as yet perceiving next to nothing of their relation to human life