I do acknowledge that an eminent station will not only be graced by you, but that you give the impression of being born to occupy it.

It is your destiny." "A miserable destiny!" It pleased Cornelia to become the wilful child who quarrels with its tutor's teachings, upon this point.
Then Mr.Barrett said quickly: "Your heart is not in this union ?" "Can you ask?
I have done my duty." "Have you, indeed!" His tone was severe in the deliberation of its accents.
Was it her duty to live an incomplete life?
He gave her a definition of personal duty, and shadowed out all her own ideas on the subject; seeming thus to speak terrible, unanswerable truth.
As one who changes the theme, he said: "I have forborne to revert to myself in our interviews; they were too divine for that.

You will always remember that I have forborne much." "Yes!" She was willing at the instant to confess how much.
"And if I speak now, I shall not be misinterpreted ?" "You never would have been, by me." "Cornelia!" Though she knew what was behind the door, this flinging of it open with her name startled the lady; and if he had faltered, it would not have been well for him.

But, plainly, he claimed the right to call her by her Christian name.

She admitted it; and thenceforward they were equals.
It was an odd story that he told of himself.