The young ladies in general admired Mr. Markham for this expression, and they thought that he deserved their best thanks for thus reprehending and exposing such wanton and cruel wickedness. Miss Henderson was among the foremost to admire this sentiment. More than once or twice did she take up her pen to write Markham a letter of compliment and congratulation; to compliment him on his virtue, and to congratulate him on his success. But she had her fears and distrusts. She really did condescend to think that peradventure there might be some little impropriety, or some appearance of forwardness, if she should be the first to commence a correspondence; and yet she did very much wish for an opportunity of expressing to Markham her high sense of his professional talents, and her admiration of the moral beauty of his mind. What a pity it is that custom has so ordered it, that the lady must always wait till the gentleman takes it into his head to propose the question! it is very arbitrary. Perhaps many a worthy, modest, diffident gentleman, who would willingly, if he dared be so presumptuous, offer his hand to some beautiful, intelligent, amiable one of the other sex, is by this social, or rather unsocial regulation, doomed to live single, or to give his hand at last to some less worthy object. This, for aught Miss Henderson knew to the contrary, might be poor Markham's case. The young lady was aware that Markham was of humble origin, and to that she partly attributed his diffidence. She also thought that very likely he was waiting till by his professional exertions he had acquired a competency to live in a certain style. She was quite charmed with the beauty of his sentiments, and the sublimity of his mind; and whenever his name was mentioned, she was copious and fluent in his praise. It was the subject of her constant thoughts, and the theme of her frequent talk. So that most persons of her acquaintance thought that if there was not an absolute engagement, there was at least an implied understanding between them; and whenever, by her young friends, any sportive insinuations to that purpose were thrown out, she did not contradict them or set them right. Herein the young lady was obviously and decidedly wrong, and laid the foundation of some after perplexity, embarrassment, and mortification. It was wrong, very wrong indeed, and it was scarcely honest, inasmuch as she thought to make doubly sure of him, by suffering every one to take it for granted that there subsisted an engagement between them. But as honesty is the best policy, and as all deviations from that strict line are attended more or less with some inconvenience and disadvantage, Miss Henderson found that her object was far from being attained by this contrivance: for as she suffered this implied or supposed engagement to become common-talk among her friends, the rumor went farther, and reached the ears of Markham himself.