Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/242

 Perhaps she overdid the innocence. Eyes are eyes, and saucers are saucers. . . But I don’t wish to appear wise after the event. I was completely taken in. . . And so was Will. She was clever enough to guess that this was the appeal to reach him quickest: the simple little girl with the soft hair and the big grey eyes, Hving out of the world with her old father, no brothers to protect her or teach her anything. One would never have been surprised to find her affecting a lisp. . . She deliberately laid herself out to catch my boy.

You must not ask me what happened. I have never been forced to study the methods of campaign which a woman adopts for such a purpose. No doubt she tried first of all to attract him innocently. Whatever success she had, poor Will is not free to marry where his heart leads him, unless his heart leads him where there is some money (I have always, as you know, dreaded an entanglement with some girl whom he would simply have to support all his life); and Will is too honourable to give any encouragement to some one he has no intention of marrying. You will understand me, too, when I say that no one could have called it a very suitable alliance—for him or for her; it is no kindness to a girl to transport her from her own world, though—poor souls!—they all