the sense of duty to herself and to others, was sacrificed to a person of Mavering’s gay, bright nature and trivial conception of life.  She did not deny his sweetness; that was perhaps the one saving thing about him; and she confessed that he simply adored Alice; that counted for everything, and it was everything in his favour that he could appreciate such a girl.  She hoped, she prayed, that Alice might never realise how little depth he had; that she might go through life and never suspect it.  If she did so, then they might be happy together to the end, or at least Alice might never know she was unhappy.

Miss Cotton never said these things in so many words; it is doubtful if she ever said them in any form of words; with her sensitive anxiety not to do injustice to any one, she took Dan’s part against those who viewed the engagement as she allowed it to appear only to her secret heart.  She defended him the more eagerly because she felt that it was for Alice’s sake, and that everything must be done to keep her from knowing how people looked at the affair, even to changing people’s minds.  She said to all who spoke to her of it that of course Alice was superior to him, but he was devoted to her, and he would grow into an equality with her.  He was naturally very refined, she said, and, if he was not a very serious person, he was amiable beyond anything.  She alleged many little incidents of their acquaintance at Campobello in proof of her theory that he had an instinctive appreciation of Alice, and she was sure that no one could value her nobleness of character more than he.  She had seen them a good deal together since their engagement, and it was beautiful to see his manner with her.  They were opposites, but she counted a good deal upon that very difference in their temperaments to draw them to each other.

It was an easy matter to see Dan and Alice together.  Their engagement came out in the usual way:  it had been announced to a few of their nearest friends, and intelligence of it soon spread from their own set through society generally; it had been published in the Sunday papers while it was still in the tender condition of a rumour, and had been denied by some of their acquaintance and believed by all.

The Pasmer cousinship had been just in the performance of the duties of blood toward Alice since the return of her family from Europe, and now did what was proper in the circumstances.  All who were connected with her called upon her and congratulated her; they knew Dan, the younger of them, much better than they knew her; and though he had shrunk from the nebulous bulk of social potentiality which every young man is to that much smaller nucleus to which definite betrothal reduces him, they could be perfectly sincere in calling him the sweetest fellow that ever was, and too lovely to live.