Though Mary said all this with no show of enthusiasm, but in the firm, quiet manner of one who, irrespectively of personal feeling, would give all due justice and honour to some highly revered and superior being; her companion seemed not altogether unmoved by her earnestness; for he fixed his eyes attentively on her as she spoke, and although he still assumed a tone of light and playful tenor, there was something of real anxiety, in the manner in which he demanded how it had possibly happened--if indeed it had happened, though he could not bear to imagine the contrary--how it had happened that she was not enchanted into a second Madeline by this most sublime of Eugene Arams? "Because I suppose," Mary gravely responded, "I had not the high taste and capability of Madeline, for though I honoured and esteemed Mr. Temple, I did not love him; and when he proposed to me the night before I left Glan Pennant, I refused him. I have never told this to any one else--but with you, I suppose," she added with a tender smile, "I must have no secrets." Her smile was returned with a depth of ten-fold love and tenderness; but Trevor rode on more silently, thoughtfully pondering perhaps on the privilege which he found thus so peculiarly to have been procured him, and the why and wherefore such privilege had been awarded to his share. There was another point in Mary's disposition greatly in Trevor's favour--the extreme humility of feeling she entertained concerning herself, and the consequent exaltation of her lover's prerogatives; that humility of true love, "Which does exalt another o'er itself With sweet will-worship." For beauty especially, of a degree more accordant with her idea of Trevor's due claims and privileges, she would sometimes in his absence breathe a sigh. True he had had all the world before him, with plenty of time and opportunity before he loved her, of choosing from amongst the most fair and beautiful with whom he must have come in contact; but still when he came to see her placed in contrast with other women, might he not, though she was sure it would not make him love her less--might he not then be struck and mortified perhaps by her inferiority in that respect. Some such ordeal, however, ere very long it was given her to prove.