No two persons could be more unlike in temperament, and in many respects in the organization of their minds, than William Bernard and his sister.  She, the creature of impulse, arriving at her conclusions by a process like intuition:  he, calm, thoughtful, deliberately weighing and revising every argument before he made up his mind:  she, destitute of all worldly prudence and trusting to the inspirations of an ingenuous and bold nature:  he, worldly wise, cautious, and calculating the end from the beginning.  Yet were his aspirations noble and untainted with a sordid or mean motive.  He would not for a world have sacrificed the happiness of his sister, but he thought it not unbecoming to promote his personal views by her means, provided it could be done without injury to herself.  He was a politician, and young as he was his scheming brain already formed plans of family and personal aggrandizement, extending far into the future.  Anne was mixed up with these in his mind, and he hoped, by the marriage connection she might form, to increase a family influence in furtherance of his plans.  These seemed likely to be defeated by Anne’s partiality for Pownal, and the young man felt the disappointment as keenly as his cool philosophical nature would permit.  But let it not be thought that William Bernard brought worldly prudence into all his plans.  His love of Faith Armstrong had no connection with any such feelings, and she would have been equally the object of his admiration and choice, had she been a portionless maiden instead of the heiress of the wealthy Mr. Armstrong.  We will not say that her prospect of succeeding to a large fortune was disagreeable to her lover, but though when he thought of her it would sometimes occur to his mind, yet was it no consideration that corrupted the purity of his affection.

Anne, when she left her brother, hastened to her chamber and subjected her heart to a scrutiny it had never experienced.  She was startled upon an examination her brother’s language had suggested, to find the interest Pownal had awakened in her bosom.  She had been pleased to be in his company, and to receive from him those little attentions which young men are in the habit of rendering to those of the same age of the other sex:  a party never seemed complete from which he was absent:  there was no one whose hand she more willingly accepted for the dance, or whose praise was more welcome when she rose from the piano:  but though the emotions she felt in his presence were so agreeable, she had not suspected them to be those of love.  Her brother had abruptly awakened her to the reality.  In the simplicity of her innocence, and with somewhat of a maiden shame, she blamed herself for allowing any young man to become to her an object of so much interest, and shrunk from the idea of having at some time unwittingly betrayed herself.  She determined, whatever pain it might cost, to reveal to her mother all her feelings, and to be guided by her advice.