Perhaps, too--for let us not exact more from Nature than Nature grants--the wide, wide difference in character, temperament, and sympathies between Miss March and her father unconsciously made his loss less a heart-loss, total and irremediable, than one of mere habit and instinctive feeling, which, the first shock over, would insensibly heal.

Besides, she was young--young in life, in hope, in body, and soul; and youth, though it grieves passionately, cannot for ever grieve.
I saw, and rejoiced to see, that Miss March was in some degree herself again; at least, so much of her old self as was right, natural, and good for her to be.
She and John conversed a good deal.

Her manner to him was easy and natural, as to a friend who deserved and possessed her warm gratitude: his was more constrained.

Gradually, however, this wore away; there was something in her which, piercing all disguises, went at once to the heart of things.

She seemed to hold in her hand the touchstone of truth.
He asked--no, I believe _I_ asked her, how long she intended staying at Enderley?
"I can hardly tell.