He had, moreover, deeply regretted the duel and had sworn to her on his honor as a gentleman that he would never fight another.
Each time she had listened quietly and had told him how much she was pleased and how grateful she was for his confidence and how such fine resolutions redounded to his credit, and yet in thinking it over the next day she could not help comparing his meek outbursts of sorrow with Harry's blunt statement made to her the last time she saw him in the park, when, instead of expressing any regret for having shot Willits, he had boldly declared that he would do it again if any such insult were repeated.

And strange to say--and this she could not understand in herself--in all such comparisons Harry came out best.
But:--and here she had to hold on to her rudder with all her might--she had already made one mistake, tumbling head over heels in love with a young fellow who had mortified her before the world when their engagement was less than a few months old, making her name and affections a byword, and she could not and would not repeat the blunder.
This had shattered her customary self-reliance, leaving her wellnigh helpless.

Perhaps after all--an unheard-of thing in her experience--she had better seek advice of some older and wiser pilot.

Two heads, or even three--( here her canny Scotch blood asserted itself)--were better than one in deciding so important a matter as the choosing of a mate for life.

And yet--now she came to think it over--it was not so much a question of heads as it was a question of shoulders on which the heads rested.