At the Exhibition and at the concert in the evening, Francis had again to admire the naturally fine taste of his younger cousin, and to lament with her that none of her talents had been cultivated.  According to all his preconceived fancies, he should have fallen in love with Elsie; but it was not so.  She was a sweet, amiable girl, with a great deal of quickness and undeveloped talent, but she was chiefly dear to him as Jane’s sister.  Elsie felt for the time restored to a better opinion of herself, and was grateful to the person who thought well of what the world seemed to despise.  She was disposed now to do Francis justice, and more than justice.  Never had she talked with a man of finer taste or more admirable judgment.  She caught another glimpse of William Dalzell, who was at the concert with the Rennies and Miss Wilson, and contrasted her old favourite with her new, very much to the disadvantage of the former.

Francis was aware that this was the person from whose attentions Jane had been in such danger.  He could scarcely conceive the possibility of a woman of such admirable sense and such penetration as Jane forming an attachment to one so shallow and so unheroic.  He felt himself scarcely worthy of Jane Melville, and he would never compare himself with the Laird of Mosstower.  But the young people had been thrown together, and had spent much of their time of meeting in the open air.  William Dalzell was a good rider and a fearless sportsman; he rode a beautiful horse, and was very careful of it.  He appeared to have a good temper, and his mother worshipped him, while Elsie was never weary of sounding his praises.  Mr. Hogarth was in indifferent health, and was somewhat exacting at all times.  He had not the sympathy with the high spirits of youth that he had had in former years, so that Jane had enjoyed the animated rides, where she did most of the talking to a listener, young, handsome, and determined to be pleased with everything she said and did.  She thought she interested him in her favourite subjects; he had said that she improved him, and his mother said the same; so that she rejoined in her influence, which seemed to bear such good results.

Miss Rennie, who had heard when in-----shire, a somewhat exaggerated
account of young Dalzell’s attachment to Miss Melville, was very much
disgusted with his conduct, and though his attentions to Laura Wilson
amused her very much, she had a grudge at him for their mercenary
motives.  Laura was evidently captivated at first sight; she could speak
of nobody but Mr. Dalzell, and Mr. Rennie as her guardian was a little
alarmed, but on inquiry he found that Moss Tower was not very
deeply dipped after all; Mrs. Dalzell had her jointure off it, but he
was an only son, and any little wildness or extravagance of youth was
likely to be put an end to by marriage.  Laura was a somewhat
troublesome ward, so passionate and so self-willed that even at school
she had carried her point against him by sheer determination over and