Besides, Arthur Campbell was a lion in society, a
success in his profession and the desired of many calculating mothers.
What would these people say if I quietly stepped inside them in Arthur
Campbell's favor?
I took up his flowers and began to choose those I should wear. After
all, I thought, it was not always wealth and beauty that accomplished
the greatest things. I might surprise our little world yet, though my
face had no extraordinary beauty, nor my form any marvellous
grace--with which hypothesis I laid a rich spray upon my breast and,
finding it becoming, fastened it there.
Ah me! how vain and foolish our weak humanity can be at times! Some
little unexpected circumstance gives us a key-note, and we sustain it
through a heart-stirring melody that will never charm our ear save in
this misty reverie. We girls of one-and-twenty summers are so easily
borne along by every passing breath of unstable experience; so easily
stimulated by rivalry that begins in little things but may yet creep
into the great crises of our lives; so easily stung to impulsive
action by the incisive smile and word of jealousy or pride; so easily
led away by aspects that show us only their bright and cheerful side;
so easily wearied of the happy, careless monotony of our young lives!
And yet, there is an exquisite pleasure for us in the weaving of those
delicate golden webs that are destined to be torn so rudely asunder by
a prosy and matter-of-fact reality.
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