Nevertheless, all these things might have gone no further than the mind, even with a calm, gentle, feeling creature like herself. Gratitude she could not have avoided entertaining under such circumstances, respect, very high esteem; but she might have felt nothing more had that been all. There was a great deal more, however. Ned Hayward had disappointed all Mary Clifford's preconceived ideas of his character; and had gone on growing upon her regard every hour. She had found him thoughtful, where she had believed him to be heedless; feeling, where she had expected him to be selfish; full of deep emotions, where she had fancied him light; well-informed and of cultivated tastes, instead of superficial and careless; and being imperatively called upon to do him justice in her own heart, she went on and did perhaps something more. But still this was not all; he had first excited wonder, curiosity, and pleasure, then admiration and esteem, then interest and sympathy. Tie all these up in a parcel, with gratitude for great services rendered, and a great number of musings regarding him in silence and in solitude, and what will be the result? Day by day after the duel she had thought of him--perhaps, I might have said, night after night. Then, when she had seen him again, and knew him to be ill and suffering, she had thought of him with deeper feelings still, and even oftener than before; and when at length he came over with reviving health, and took up his abode in the same house with herself, she returned to her old manner of thinking of him, with a number of new sensations blending in her meditations; and she fancied that she was studying his character all the while. What was it that she compared it to? She thought it was like a deep beautiful valley, so full of sunshine, that no eye, but one very near, could see the fair things that it contained. I do not know what all this was, readers; but I think it looked very like falling in love.