"I could wish I had a right to inquire why you, who have so few causes in general to be out of spirits, should have chosen a moment so little in accordance with the common feeling." "I have chosen no moment; the moment has chosen me, I fear. Not until this day, Sir George Templemore, have I ever been truly sensible of my great inferiority to my cousin, Eve." "An inferiority that no one but yourself would observe or mention." "No, I am neither vain enough, nor ignorant enough, to be the dupe of this flattery," returned Grace, shaking her hands and head, while she forced a smile; for even the delusions those we love pour into our ears, are not without their charms. "When I first met my cousin, after her return, my own imperfections rendered me blind to her superiority; but she herself has gradually taught me to respect her mind, her womanly character, her tact, her delicacy, principles, breeding, every thing that can make a woman estimable, or worthy to be loved! Oh! how have I wasted in childish amusements, and frivolous vanities, the precious moments of that girlhood which can never be recalled, and left myself scarcely worthy to be an associate of Eve Effingham!" The first feelings of Grace had so far gotten the control, that she scarce knew what she said, or to whom she was speaking; she even wrung her hands, in the momentary bitterness of her regrets, and in a way to arouse all the sympathy of a lover. "No one but yourself would say this, Miss Van Cortlandt, and least of all your admirable cousin." "She is, indeed, my admirable cousin! But what are _we_, in comparison with such a woman. Simple and unaffected as a child, with the intelligence of a scholar; with all the graces of a woman, she has the learning and mind of a man. Mistress of so many languages----" "But you, too, speak several, my dear Miss Van Cortlandt." "Yes," said Grace, bitterly, "I _speak_ them, as the parrot repeats words that he does not understand. But Eve Effingham has used these languages as means, and she does not tell you merely what such a phrase or idiom signifies, but what the greatest writers have thought and written." "No one has a more profound respect for your cousin than myself, Miss Van Cortlandt, but justice to you requires that I should say her great superiority over yourself has escaped me."