To her he was the heart of wisdom, the head of knowledge, the arm of strength.
But her worship was quiet, as the worship of maiden, in whatever kind, ought to be.

She knew nothing of what is called love except as a word, and from sympathy with the persons in the tales she read.

Any remotest suggestion of its existence in her relation to Godfrey she would have resented as the most offensive impertinence--an accusation of impossible irreverence.
By degrees Godfrey came to understand, but then only in a measure, with what a self-refusing, impressionable nature he was dealing; and, as he saw, he became more generous toward her, more gentle and delicate in his ministration.

Of necessity he grew more and more interested in her, especially after he had made the discovery that the moment she laid hold of a truth--the moment, that is, when it was no longer another's idea but her own perception--it began to sprout in her in all directions of practice.

By nature she was not intellectually quick; but, because such was her character, the ratio of her progress was of necessity an increasing one.
If Godfrey had seen in his new relation to Letty a possibility of the revival of feelings he had supposed for ever extinguished, such a possibility would have borne to him purely the aspect of danger; at the mere idea of again falling in love he would have sickened with dismay; and whether or not he had any dread of such a catastrophe, certain it is that he behaved to her more as a pedagogue than a cousinly tutor, insisting on a precision in all she did that might have gone far to rouse resentment and recoil in the mind of a less childlike woman.