We rode together (she had an admirable figure and rode well), and the exercise did her health great good.

We often met Mr.Clerke in our rides, and he seemed to enjoy a canter with us, though he rode very little better than when I first knew him.

We took long walks with Sweep, and from the oldest tenant to the latest puppy, everything about Dacrefield seemed to interest my fair cousin.

I came at last to believe that Aunt Maria was right.
When I did come to believe it (and I do not think that any contemptible conceit made me hasty to do so), other thoughts followed.
I was as firmly convinced as any other young man with my experiences that I could never again feel what I had felt for the person who shall be nameless.

But the first bitterness of that agony being undoubtedly over, I felt that I might find a sober satisfaction in making my father's declining years happy by giving him a daughter-in-law, and that I was perhaps hardly justified in allowing Maria to fall into a consumption when I could prevent it.