What a picture! I shudder as I draw it.

Oh, yes, it is easy, I know, to look at it the other way--to laugh at the folly of a girl, who first excites her imagination about a total stranger; and then, when she hears him speak, falls in love with his voice! But add that the girl is blind; that the girl lives habitually in the world of her own imagination; that the girl has nobody at home who can exercise a wholesome influence over her.

Is there nothing pitiable in such a state of things as this?
For myself, though I come of a light-hearted nation that laughs at everything--I saw my own face looking horribly grave and old, as I sat before the glass that night, brushing my hair.
I looked at my bed.

Bah! what was the use of going to bed?
She was her own mistress.

She was perfectly free to take her next walk to Browndown alone! and to place herself, for all I knew to the contrary, at the mercy of a dishonorable and designing man.