The day she refused young Sir Harry Griffin I could have kneeled at her feet and called her blessed! It is said that no moral disease is ever benefited by its study.

I was a living proof of the truth of the opinion that brooding over one's wrongs or infirmities seldom does much more than aggravate the evil.

I greatly fear it is in the nature of man to depreciate the advantages he actually enjoys and to exaggerate those which are denied him.

Fifty times during the six months that succeeded the repulse of the young baronet did I resolve to take heart and to throw myself at the feet of Anna, and as often was I deterred by the apprehension that I had nothing to render me worthy of one so excellent, and especially of one who was the granddaughter of the seventh English baronet.

I do not pretend to explain the connection between cause and effect, for I am neither physician nor metaphysician; but the tumult of spirits that resulted from so many doubts, hopes, fears, resolutions, and breakings of resolutions, began to affect my health, and I was just about to yield to the advice of my friends (among whom Anna was the most earnest and the most sorrowful), to travel, when an unexpected call to attend the death-bed of my ancestor was received.