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to demand of her something that no one else, as it were, had
presumed to do. What she felt was that a territorial, a politi-
cal, a social magnate had conceived the design of drawing
her into the system in which he rather invidiously lived and
moved. A certain instinct, not imperious, but persuasive,
told her to resist—murmured to her that virtually she had
a system and an orbit of her own. It told her other things
besidesthings which both contradicted and confirmed each
other; that a girl might do much worse than trust herself
to such a man and that it would be very interesting to see
something of his system from his own point of view; that
on the other hand, however, there was evidently a great deal
of it which she should regard only as a complication of ev-
ery hour, and that even in the whole there was something
stiff and stupid which would make it a burden. Furthermore
there was a young man lately come from America who had
no system at all, but who had a character of which it was
useless for her to try to persuade herself that the impression
on her mind had been light. The letter she carried in her
pocket all sufficiently reminded her of the contrary. Smile
not, however, I venture to repeat, at this simple young wom-
an from Albany who debated whether she should accept an
English peer before he had offered himself and who was dis-
posed to believe that on the whole she could do better. She
was a person of great good faith, and if there was a great deal
of folly in her wisdom those who judge her severely may
have the satisfaction of finding that, later, she became con-
sistently wise only at the cost of an amount of folly which
will constitute almost a direct appeal to charity.

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