She had told herself this, ever since that journey together from Perivale to Taunton; but never till now had she also confessed to herself what was her own case.
She made a comparison between the two men.

Her cousin Will was, she thought, the more generous, the more energetic,--perhaps, by nature, the man of the higher gifts.

In person he was undoubtedly the superior.

He was full of noble qualities;--forgetful of self, industrious, full of resources, a very man of men, able to command, eager in doing work for others' good and his own,--a man altogether uncontaminated by the coldness and selfishness of the outer world.
But he was rough, awkward, but indifferently educated, and with few of those tastes which to Clara Amedroz were delightful.

He could not read poetry to her, he could not tell her of what the world of literature was doing now or of what it had done in times past.