It was that very love which made her
hesitate. She hardly dared to think of him. In her great humility she
overlooked entirely the fact of her own great personal loveliness, her
rare grace and gifts. She could only wonder what there was in her that
could attract him.
He was a descendant of one of the oldest families in England--he had a
title, he was wealthy, clever, he had every great and good gift--yet he
loved her; he stooped from his exalted position to love her, and she,
for his own sake, wished to refuse his love. But she found it difficult.
She sat down by the brook-side, and, perhaps for the first time in her
gentle life, a feeling of dissatisfaction rose within her; yet it was
not so much that as a longing that she could be different from what she
was--a wish that she had been nobly born, endowed with some great gift
that would have brought her nearer to him. How happy she would have been
then--how proud to love him--how glad to devote her sweet young life to
him! At present it was different; the most precious thing that she could
give him--which was her love--would be most prejudicial to him.
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