Virginia is the daughter of a clergyman.  Father and mother are both dead.  She has a brother in the army, and a sister married to a country rector.  Her uncle, Mr. Hayward, has adopted her.  She is clever and accomplished.  She has both passion and imagination.  Some of her ideas are original; she hates common-placeness, but she is also imbued with the attribute possessed by every charming woman, the love of approbation.  This prevents her doing or saying anything outre or unconventional; this makes her careful of her appearance and fond of fair apparel; this makes the evidence of admiration from the other sex exceedingly agreeable to her; this causes her to adopt a manner towards them that induces jealous women to call her a coquette.  She has had several offers of marriage, but she entertains peculiar ideas about the strength of passion and the sympathy of thought a man and woman ought to feel for each other before they decide to spend a life-time together.  She does not think a man who has a good income, and who is simply not repulsive or abhorrent to her, a sufficient inducement.

The days wear on.  Virginia does not forget Mr. Vansittart any more than he forgets her, but he weighs more on her heart than she does on his, for, happy man! he is perpetually occupied, being a barrister with a considerable practice, whilst she is an idle woman as the well-to-do of her sex mostly are.  If she goes to balls or dances, she is always contrasting every man, with whom she talks or dances, with him; if she works at her embroidery, her thoughts are intent on him; if she reads, a hero of her own ousts the hero of the novel from her brain; if she sings, her voice is moved to strong pathos; her eyes become drowned by that strange passion which consumes her.  Days and weeks pass by; and she does not catch a glimpse of him; does not even hear his name.  She sees it frequently in the Times.  One Sunday afternoon, she and her uncle strolling in the Park meet him.  He lifts his hat, and is about to pass, when something that her eyes have communicated to his heart, stops him suddenly.  He turns and joins them.  It is a delicious summer afternoon:  they take chairs under the big trees which shade this cool green spot.  Presently a crony joins Mr. Hayward—­soon the elder pair are deep in the cause celebre of the day.  Virginia and Mr. Vansittart have forgotten that other people exist in the world—­the topics of their conversation are ordinary enough, but it is not from them that a subtle delight steals through their veins.  What they heed is the language of each other’s eyes.  His say—­“You fulfil my idea of perfect womanhood.  I could love you with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength.  I respect you with my purest feelings; I love you with my strongest passions; I would to God I could shake off my doubts about marriage.  But I know that if I married you, inexorable Destiny would no longer let us love one another.”