Hester's Courage After that Caldigate did not allow the grass to grow under his feet, and before the end of November the two young people were engaged.

As Robert Bolton had said, Hester was of course flattered and of course delighted with this new joy.

John Caldigate was just the man to recommend himself to such a girl, not too light, not too prone to pleasure, not contenting himself with bicycles, cricket matches, or billiards, and yet not wholly given to serious matters as had been those among whom she had hitherto passed her days.

And he was one who could speak of his love with soft winning words, neither roughly nor yet with too much of shame-faced diffidence.

And when he told her how he had sworn to himself after seeing her that once,--that once when all before him in life was enveloped in doubt and difficulty,--that he would come home and make her his wife, she thought that the manly constancy of his heart was almost divine.