As a rule he looked for it in women, and would say that some amount of affectation was necessary to a woman's character.

He knew that his cousin Lizzie was a little liar,--that she was, as Lucy had said, a pretty animal that would turn and bite;--and yet he liked his cousin Lizzie.

He did not want women to be perfect,--so he would say.

But Lucy Morris, in his eyes, was perfect; and when he told her that she was ever the queen who reigned in those castles in the air which he built,--as others build them, he told her no more than the truth.
He had fallen into these feelings and could not now avoid them, or be quit of them;--but he could have been silent respecting them.

He knew that in former days, down at Bobsborough, he had not been altogether silent.