and reserve.  I was insatiably fond of reading, little attracted toward society.  When my uncle’s house, as often happened, was full of gay company, I withdrew to my own room, and read my favorite authors in its pleasant solitude.  I was ill at ease with lively, fashionable people,—­very much at home with books.  Thanks to my uncle’s care, I was well educated, even scholarly, for my age and sex.  My studious habits, far from being discouraged, were praised by all the household, and I was looked upon as a prodigy of cleverness and industry.

A widow lady, of the name of Haughton, came to live in the little cottage near us when I was fifteen years old.  She was well-born, but poor, and had known many sorrows.  My aunt, Mrs. Heywood, soon became interested in her, and took pleasure in offering her those numerous attentions which a wealthy neighbor can so easily bestow, and which are so grateful to the recipient.  Mrs. Haughton and her sons were frequent guests at our house; and we, too, spent many pleasant hours in the vine-covered porch of the cottage.  I had few companions, and John and William Haughton were very welcome to me.  They were somewhat older than I,—­John twenty-two, and William two years younger; and I was thus just able to escape regarding them with that profound contempt which the girl of fifteen usually feels for “boys.”  After knowing them awhile I felt how baseless such contempt would be; for they possessed a depth and maturity of character rarely seen except in men of much experience.  John was grave and thoughtful; his livelier brother often said he had come into the world some centuries too late,—­that he was meant for an Augustine or a Pascal, so studious was he, and so saintly.  Do not fancy that he was one of those stiff, bespectacled, pedantic youths who cannot open their lips without a classic allusion or a Greek quotation; nothing could be farther from the truth.  He was quiet and retiring; very few guessed how beneath that exterior, so unassuming, lay hid the noblest aspirations, the most exalted thought.  It was John I should have loved.

But it was William who won my heart, even without an effort.  I, the pale, serious girl, loved with a wild idolatry the gay and careless youth.  Never, from that day till now, have I seen a man so perfect in all manly beauty.  Strength and symmetry were united in his tall, athletic figure; his features were large, but nobly formed; his hair, of a sunny hue, fell in rich masses over a broad, white brow.  So might Apollo have looked in the flush of his immortal youth.

At first I gazed at him only with the enthusiasm which his extreme beauty might well awaken in the heart of a romantic maiden; then I grew to see in the princely type of that beauty a reflection of his mind.  Did ever any fond fool so dote upon her Ideal as I on mine?  All generous thoughts, all noble deeds, seemed only the fit expression of his nature.  Then I came to mingle a reverence with my admiration.  We were friends; he talked to me much of his plans in life,—­of the future that lay before him.  What an ambitious spirit burned within him!—­a godlike ambition I thought it then.  And how my weak, womanish heart thrilled with sympathy to his!  With what pride I listened to his words! with what fervor I joined in his longings!