Be this as it may, the favourite had a friend upon the present occasion, and no less a friend than General Clarendon, who presented it with a marble basin, such as doves should drink out of, by right of long prescription. The general feared, he said, “that this vase might be a little too deep--dangerously perhaps----.” But Helen thought nothing could be altogether more perfect in taste and in kindness--approving Beauclerc’s kindness too--a remembrance of a day most agreeably spent. Churchill, to whom she looked, as she said the last words, with all becoming politeness, bowed and accepted the compliment, but with a reserve of jealousy on the brow; and as he looked again at the dove, caressing and caressed, and then at the classic vase--he stood vexed, and to himself he said,-- “So this is the end of all my pains--hawking and all ‘quite chivalrous!’ Beauclerc carries off the honours and pleasures of the day, and his present and his dove are to be all in all. Yet still,” continued he to himself in more consolatory thought--“she is so open in her very love for the bird, that it is plain she has not yet any love for the man. She would be somewhat more afraid to show it, delicate as she is. It is only friendship--honest friendship, on her side; and if her affections be not engaged somewhere else--she may be mine: if--if I please--if--I can bring myself fairly to propose--we shall see--I shall think of it.” And now he began to think of it seriously.--Miss Stanley’s indifference to him, and the unusual difficulty which he found in making any impression, stimulated him in an extraordinary degree. Helen now appeared to him even more beautiful than he had at first thought her--“Those eyes that fix so softly,” thought he, “those dark eyelashes--that blush coming and going so beautifully--and there is a timid grace in all her motions, with that fine figure too--and that high-bred turn of the neck!--altogether she is charming! and she will be thought so!--she must be mine!” She would do credit to his taste; he thought she would, when she had a little more _usage du monde_, do the honours of his house well; and it would be delightful to train her!--If he could but engage her affections, before she had seen more of the world, she might really love him for his own sake--and Churchill wished to be really loved, if possible, for his own sake; but of the reality of modern love he justly doubted, especially for a man of his fortune and his age; yet, with Helen’s youth and innocence he began to think he had some chance of disinterested attachment, and he determined to bring out for her the higher powers of his mind--the better parts of his character.