Just as surely, notwithstanding all that, however, did the sweet girl grow into his heart: it _could_ not be otherwise.

The idea of her was making a nest for itself in his soul--what kind of a nest for long he did not know, and for long did not think to inquire.

Living thus, like an elder brother with a much younger sister, he was more than satisfied, refusing, it may be, to regard the probability of intruding change.

But how far any man and woman may have been made capable of loving without falling in love, can be answered only after question has yielded to history.

In the mean time, Mrs.Wardour, who would have been indignant at the notion of any equal bond between her idolized son and her patronized cousin, neither saw, nor heard, nor suspected anything to rouse uneasiness.
Things were thus in the old house, when the growing affection of Letty for Mary Marston took form one day in the request that she would make Thornwick the goal of her Sunday walk.