The fall, the winter, and the spring wore away, and, as yet, no certain indication appeared of the issue of this, to our villagers, momentous affair. Edward certainly preferred Jane, and yet he was more at his ease with Elvira. He could not but perceive the decided superiority of Jane; but Elvira made him always think more and better of himself; and this most agreeable effect of her flatteries and servility reflected a charm on her. Jane was never less satisfied with herself than during this harassing period of her life. A new set of feelings were springing up in her heart, over which she felt that she had little control. At times, her confidence in Edward was strong; and then, suddenly, a hasty expression, or an unprepared action, revealed a trait that deformed the fair proportions of the hero of her imagination. Elvira's continual projects, and busy rivalry, provoked, at last, a spirit of competition; which was certainly natural, though very wrong; but, alas! our heroine had infirmities. Who is without them?
In the beginning of the month of June, David Wilson came from college, involved in debt and in disgrace. His youthful follies had ripened into vices, and his mother had no patience, no forbearance for the faults, which she might have traced to her own mismanagement, but for which she found a source that relieved her from responsibility. The following was the close of an altercation, noisy and bitter, between this mother and son:—"I am ruined, utterly ruined, if you refuse me the
