It seemed to him that he was in love, indiscriminately, with three girls at once.

He saw that Lizzie Acton was more brilliantly pretty than Charlotte and Gertrude; but this was scarcely a superiority.

His pleasure came from something they had in common--a part of which was, indeed, that physical delicacy which seemed to make it proper that they should always dress in thin materials and clear colors.

But they were delicate in other ways, and it was most agreeable to him to feel that these latter delicacies were appreciable by contact, as it were.

He had known, fortunately, many virtuous gentlewomen, but it now appeared to him that in his relations with them (especially when they were unmarried) he had been looking at pictures under glass.