"'On the contrary,' said Nelly, as she rose slowly from the little couch where she was reclining, and her small figure grew erect and her large eyes lustrous, 'I would marry no man who could not pass through such an ordeal and remain true to me. I am, as you see, hopelessly plain and ungraceful; yet, from my earliest childhood, I have been a passionate worshipper of beauty. I never expected to win love--I never expected to marry--and when Fitz, with all his glorious beauty, sued for my hand, I could not convince myself that it was not all a bewildering dream. It was such a temptation to a heart so isolated as mine; and eloquently it plead for itself. When I drank in the music of his voice, I said, 'surely I must be lovely in _his_ eyes; else why has he sought me?' Then, in my solitary moments, I said, sadly, 'there are none to dispute the prize with me here. He is deceiving himself; he is only in love with nature and the beautiful about us. He has mistaken his own heart.' Then again, I would ask myself, 'can nothing but _beauty_ win a noble heart? are all my intellectual gifts valueless?' And still, Fitz unable to understand my contradictory moods, passionately urged his suit. It needed not that waste of eloquence; my heart was already captive. And now, by the intensity of that happiness of which I know myself to be capable, I will prove him. Kate's beauty--Kate's witchery, shall be the test! If his heart remains loyal to me, I am his. If not--' and her cheek grew pale, and large tears gathered slowly in her eyes--'I have saved myself a deeper misery.'
"Fitz Allan 'had travelled,' and that is generally understood to mean to go abroad and remain a period of time long enough to grow a fierce beard and fiercer moustache, and cultivate a thorough contempt for everything in your own country. This was not true of Fitz Allan. It had only bound him the more closely to home and friends. His splendid person and cultivated manners had been a letter of recommendation to him in cultivated society. He was no fop, and yet he was fully aware of these personal advantages. (What handsome man is not?) He had trophies of all kinds, to attest his skillful generalship; such as dainty satin slippers, tiny kid gloves, faded roses, ringlets of all colors, ebony, flaxen and auburn, and _bijouterie_ without limit.