Then, too, he was now in misfortune; and when has that failed to soften even the softness of a woman's heart?
It was impossible that she should not make comparisons, comparisons that were so distasteful to her; impossible, also, that she should not accuse herself of some falseness to that first lover.

The time to us, my friends, seems short enough since she was walking there, and listening with childish delight to Owen's protestations of love.

It was but little more than one year since: but to her those months had been very long.

And, reader, if thou hast arrived at any period of life which enables thee to count thy past years by lustrums; if thou art at a time of life, past thirty we will say, hast thou not found that thy years, which are now short enough, were long in those bygone days?
Those fourteen months were to her the space almost of a second life, as she now looked back upon them.

When those earlier vows were made, what had she cared for prudence, for the world's esteem, or an alliance that might be becoming to her?
That Owen Fitzgerald was a gentleman of high blood and ancient family, so much she had cared to know; for the rest, she had only cared to feel this, that her heart beat high with pleasure when he was with her.
Did her heart beat as high now, when his cousin was beside her?
No; she felt that it did not.