He is actually our principal excitement in this dull opera season; though, for my own part, when I think of the poor girl in England, I am a great deal more ready to despise him than to laugh at him." "You know the Elmslies then ?" "Intimately.

The other day my mother wrote to me from England, after having seen Ada.

This escapade of Monkton's has outraged all her friends.

They have been entreating her to break off the match, which it seems she could do if she liked.

Even her mother, sordid and selfish as she is, has been obliged at last, in common decency, to side with the rest of the family; but the good, faithful girl won't give Monkton up.
She humors his insanity; declares he gave her a good reason in secret for going away; says she could always make him happy when they were together in the old Abbey, and can make him still happier when they are married; in short, she loves him dearly, and will therefore believe in him to the last.