let into the inner life of this girl, and would be proud of yourself that so much should have been granted you.  You would feel that there was something also in yourself in that this should have been permitted.  Her hair and eyebrows were dark brown, of the hue most common to men and women, and had in them nothing that was peculiar; but her hair was soft and smooth and ever well dressed, and never redolent of peculiar odors.  It was simply Florence Mountjoy’s hair, and that made it perfect in the eyes of her male friends generally.

“She’s not such a wonderful beauty, after all,” once said of her a gentleman to whom it may be presumed that she had not taken the trouble to be peculiarly attractive.  “No,” said another,—­“no.  But, by George!  I shouldn’t like to have the altering of her.”  It was thus that men generally felt in regard to Florence Mountjoy.  When they came to reckon her up they did not see how any change was to be made for the better.

To Florence, as to most other girls, the question of her future life had been a great trouble.  Whom should she marry? and whom should she decline to marry?  To a girl, when it is proposed to her suddenly to change everything in life, to go altogether away and place herself under the custody of a new master, to find for herself a new home, new pursuits, new aspirations, and a strange companion, the change must be so complete as almost to frighten her by its awfulness.  And yet it has to be always thought of, and generally done.

But this change had been presented to Florence in a manner more than ordinarily burdensome.  Early in life, when naturally she would not have begun to think seriously of marriage, she had been told rather than asked to give herself to her cousin Mountjoy.  She was too firm of character to accede at once—­to deliver herself over body and soul to the tender mercies of one, in truth, unknown.  But she had been unable to interpose any reason that was valid, and had contented herself by demanding time.  Since that there had been moments in which she had almost yielded.  Mountjoy Scarborough had been so represented to her that she had considered it to be almost a duty to yield.  More than once the word had been all but spoken; but the word had never been spoken.  She had been subjected to what might be called cruel pressure.  In season and out of season her mother had represented as a duty this marriage with her cousin.  Why should she not marry her cousin?  It must be understood that these questions had been asked before any of the terrible facts of Captain Scarborough’s life had been made known to her.  Because, it may be said, she did not love him.  But in these days she had loved no man, and was inclined to think so little of herself as to make her want of love no necessary bar to the accomplishment of the wish of others.  By degrees she was spoken of among their acquaintance as the promised bride of Mountjoy Scarborough, and though she ever denied the imputation, there came over her girl’s heart a feeling,—­very sad and very solemn, but still all but accepted,—­that so it must be.  Then Harry Annesley had crossed her path, and the question had been at last nearly answered, and the doubts nearly decided.  She did not quite know at first that she loved Harry Annesley, but was almost sure that it was impossible for her to become the wife of Mountjoy Scarborough.