Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/188

178 and the companion of his life. He had had uncomfortable suspicions on that head himself, I imagined, but such was his inexperience, and such were the lady's powers of attraction and her skill in bringing them to bear upon his young imagination, that they had not disturbed him long, and I believe the only effectual causes of the vacillating indecision that had preserved him hitherto from making an actual declaration of love, was the consideration of her connections, and especially of her mother, whom he could not abide. Had they lived at a distance, he might have surmounted the objection, but within two or three miles of Woodford, it was really no light matter.

"You've been to call on the Wilsons, Lawrence," said I as I walked beside his pony.

"Yes," replied he, slightly averting his face: "I thought it but civil to take the first opportunity of returning their kind attentions, since they have been so very particular and constant