There was not one in that room, unless it was Mary Wharton, who was not more or less angry with Emily, thinking her to be perverse and unreasonable.

Even to Mary her cousin's strange obstinacy was matter of surprise and sorrow,--for to her Arthur Fletcher was one of those demigods, who should never be refused, who are not expected to do more than express a wish and be accepted.

Her own heart had not strayed that way because she thought but little of herself, knowing herself to be portionless, and believing from long thought on the subject that it was not her destiny to be the wife of any man.

She regarded Arthur Fletcher as being of all men the most lovable,--though, knowing her own condition, she did not dream of loving him.

It did not become her to be angry with another girl on such a cause;--but she was amazed that Arthur Fletcher should sigh in vain.
The girl's folly and perverseness on this head were known to them all,--but as yet her greater folly and worse perverseness, her vitiated taste and dreadful partiality for the Portuguese adventurer, were known but to the two old men and to poor Arthur himself.