of playmates suited to his years: and, perhaps, her pleasure was
sweetened not a little by the fact of my being with her instead of
with him, and therefore incapable of doing him any injury directly
or indirectly, designedly or otherwise, small thanks to her for
that same.

But sometimes, I believe, she really had some little gratification
in conversing with me; and one bright February morning, during
twenty minutes' stroll along the moor, she laid aside her usual
asperity and reserve, and fairly entered into conversation with me,
discoursing with so much eloquence and depth of thought and feeling
on a subject happily coinciding with my own ideas, and looking so
beautiful withal, that I went home enchanted; and on the way
(morally) started to find myself thinking that, after all, it
would, perhaps, be better to spend one's days with such a woman
than with Eliza Millward; and then I (figuratively) blushed for my
inconstancy.

On entering the parlour I found Eliza there with Rose, and no one
else. The surprise was not altogether so agreeable as it ought to
have been. We chatted together a long time, but I found her rather
frivolous, and even a little insipid, compared with the more mature
and earnest Mrs. Graham. Alas, for human constancy!

'However,' thought I, 'I ought not to marry Eliza, since my mother
so strongly objects to it, and I ought not to delude the girl with
the idea that I intended to do so. Now, if this mood continue, I
shall have less difficulty in emancipating my affections from her
soft yet unrelenting sway; and, though Mrs. Graham might be equally
objectionable, I may be permitted, like the doctors, to cure a