The only sister of the three brothers Raynor had married a London banker, Timothy Atkinson, the junior partner in the house of Atkinson and Atkinson. When Edina was two-and-twenty years of age, she went on a visit to her aunt in London. Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Atkinson, who had married rather late in life, were childless; and in these later years Mrs. Atkinson had become an invalid. She was also eccentric and capricious; and, for the first few days after her arrival, Edina thought she should not enjoy her visit at all. Timothy Atkinson was a sociable little man, but he spent all his time in the business downstairs--for they lived at the banking-house. His cousin, the head and chief, disabled by illness, rarely came to business now; it all lay on Timothy's shoulders. No one seemed to have any time to give to Edina. But soon a change came. George Atkinson, the son of the elder partner, found out Edina; and perhaps pitying her loneliness, or out of courtesy, constituted himself her cavalier. He was nine or ten years older than Edina: a good-looking, rather silent young man of middle height and grave courtesy, with a pleasant voice and thoughtful face. He was not strong, and there had been some talk of his having been ordered to travel for his health; but the death of his mother had intervened and prevented it. But, though a silent man to the world in general, he was eloquent to Edina. At least, she found him so. As though they had been the actual cousins that Mrs. Atkinson sometimes called them, he was allowed to take her everywhere. To the theatres, the opera, the gardens, all the shows and sights of London, Edina was entrusted to the care of George Atkinson. Sometimes Mrs. Atkinson was with them; more often she was not. And better care he could not have taken of her, or shown himself more solicitous for her comfort, had she been his sister or cousin. Honourable, instinctively kind, upright and noble, there was in George Atkinson a chivalrous devotion to women, that could only betray itself in manner and tell upon those on whom it was exercised. It told upon Edina. Highly educated, and possessing a fund of general information, he was a most agreeable companion. Before one-half of their few weeks' intercourse together had passed, she had learned to love George Atkinson with a lasting affection. Many a half-hour did he spend talking to her in low gentle accents of his recently dead mother. His love, his reverence, his still lively grief for her loss, was expressed in the truest and most tender terms. This alone would have taken Edina's heart by storm. She believed there lived not another man in the world who was so true a gentleman, so estimable and admirable in all respects as George Atkinson. Indeed he was very much so, as young men go; and neither Edina nor any other girl need feel anything but pride at being chosen by him.