The neighborhood began to take a great interest in the Elms when this rivalship first became apparent, which it need not have done had Hamerton shown any command of himself; for Mr. Rivers was perfectly well-bred, and there is nothing in which distinguished manners show more plainly than in the way by which, in the first stage of a love-making, a man can secure the object of his devotion from all remark. There can be no better test of a high-bred gentleman; and though he was only the son of an humble family with no pretension to be considered county people, he answered admirably to it. Rosalind was herself conscious of the special homage he paid her, but no one else would have been at all the wiser had it not been for the ridiculous jealousy of Roland, who could not contain himself in Rivers’s presence. The position of Rosalind between these two men was a little different from the ordinary ideal. The right thing to have done in her circumstances would have been, had she “felt a preference,” as it was expressed in the eighteenth century, to have, with all the delicacy and firmness proper to maidenhood, so discouraged and put down the one who was not preferred as to have left him no excuse for persisting in his vain pretensions. If she had no preference she ought to have gently but decidedly made both aware that their homage was vain. As for taking any pleasure in it, if she did not intend in either case to recompense it--that would not be thought of for a moment. But Rosalind, though she had come in contact with so much that was serious in life, and had so many of its gravest duties to perform, was yet so young and so natural as not to be at all superior to the pleasure of being sought. She liked it, though her historian does not know how to make the admission. No doubt, had she been accused of such a sentiment, she would have denied it hotly and even with some indignation, not being at all in the habit of investigating the phenomena of her own mind; but yet she did not in her heart dislike to feel that she was of the first importance to more than one beholder, and that her presence or absence made a difference in the aspect of the world to two men. A sense of being approved, admired, thought much of, is always agreeable. Even when the sentiment does not go the length of love, there is a certain moral support in the consciousness in a girl’s mind that she embodies to some one the best things in humankind. When the highest instincts of love touch the heart it becomes a sort of profanity, indeed, to think of any but the one who has awakened that divine inspiration; but, in the earlier stages, before any sentiment has become definite, or her thoughts begun to contemplate any final decision, there is a secret gratification in the mere consciousness. It may not be an elevated feeling, but it is a true one. She is pleased; there is a certain elation in her veins in spite of herself. Mr. Ruskin says that a good girl should have seven suitors at