Frank had been foolish in avowing his passion.

No such folly as that could be laid at her door.
But had she been proof against the other folly?
Had she been able to walk heart-whole by his side, while he chatted his commonplaces about love?
Yes, they are commonplaces when we read of them in novels; common enough, too, to some of us when we write them; but they are by no means commonplace when first heard by a young girl in the rich, balmy fragrance of a July evening stroll.
Nor are they commonplaces when so uttered for the first or second time at least, or perhaps the third.

'Tis a pity that so heavenly a pleasure should pall upon the senses.
If it was so that Frank's folly had been listened to with a certain amount of pleasure, Mary did not even admit so much to herself.

But why should it have been otherwise?
Why should she have been less prone to love than he was?
Had he not everything which girls do love?
which girls should love?
which God created noble, beautiful, all but godlike, in order that women, all but goddesslike, might love?
To love thoroughly, truly, heartily, with her whole body, soul, heart, and strength; should not that be counted for a merit in a woman?
And yet we are wont to make a disgrace of it.

We do so most unnaturally, most unreasonably; for we expect our daughters to get themselves married off our hands.