But Mary Monson was taking a far higher flight than the circulation of an injurious rumour. She believed herself to be putting on foot a master-stroke of policy. In her intercourse with Timms, so much was said of the power of opinion, that she had passed hours, nay days, in the study of the means to control and counteract it. Whence she obtained her notion of the virtue of reaction it might not be easy to say; but her theory was not without its truth; and it is certain that her means of producing it were of remarkable simplicity and ingenuity. Having settled the two preliminaries of the rumour and of Williams’s proposition, Timms thought the moment favourable to making a demonstration in his own affairs. Love he did not yet dare to propose openly; though he had now been, for some time, making covert demonstrations towards the tender passion. In addition to the motive of cupidity, one of great influence with such a man, Timms’s heart, such as it was, had really yielded to the influence of a beauty, manners, accomplishments, and information, all of a class so much higher than he had been accustomed to meet with, as to be subjects of wonder with him, not to say of adoration. This man had his affections as well as another; and, while John Wilmeter had submitted to a merely passing inclination, as much produced by the interest he took in an unknown female’s situation as by any other cause, poor Timms had been hourly falling more and more in love. It is a tribute to nature, that this passion can be, and is, felt by all. Although a purifying sentiment, the corrupt and impure can feel its power, and, in a greater or less degree, submit to its influence, though their homage may be tainted by the grosser elements that are so largely mixed up with the compound of their characters. We may have occasion to show hereafter how far the uncouth attorney of Mary Monson succeeded in his suit with his fair client. [Illustration] CHAPTER XXV. “I challenge envy, Malice, and all the practices of hell, To censure all the actions of my past Unhappy life, and taint me if they can.” _The Orphan._