In all his relations with womanhood he was delicate and reverential,
forming his manners by that old precept, "The elder women entreat as
mothers, the younger as sisters,"--which rule, short and simple as
it is, is nevertheless the most perfect _resume_, of all true
gentlemanliness. Then, as for person, the Doctor was not handsome, to be
sure; but he was what sometimes serves with woman better,--majestic
and manly, and, when animated by thought and feeling, having even a
commanding grandeur of mien. Add to all this, that our valiant hero is
now on the straight road to bring him into that situation most likely
to engage the warm partisanship of a true woman,--namely, that of a man
unjustly abused for right-doing,--and one may see that it is ten to one
our Mary may fall in love with him yet, before she knows it.
If it were not for this mysterious selfness-and-sameness which makes
this wild, wandering, uncanonical sailor, James Marvyn, so intimate
and internal,--if his thread were not knit up with the thread of her
life,--were it not for the old habit of feeling for him, thinking for
him, praying for him, hoping for him, fearing for him, which--woe is
us!--is the unfortunate habit of womankind,--if it were not for that
fatal something which neither judgment, nor wishes, nor reason, nor
common sense shows any great skill in unravelling,--we are quite sure
that Mary would be in love with the Doctor within the next six
months; as it is, we leave you all to infer from your own heart and
consciousness what his chances are.
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