Your noblest natures are most credulous.
—CHAPMAN.
Bromly Egerton (we give him the name by which he had become known to our friends in Lansdale) considered it "a very lucky chance" that had provided him a boarding-place so near the temporary home of his intended victim. He felicitated himself greatly upon it, and lost no time in improving to the utmost all the advantages it conferred. It soon came to be a customary thing for him to drop in at Miss Stanhope's every day, or two or three times a day, and to join the young girls in their walks and drives, for, though at first paying court to no one but the mistress of the mansion, he gradually turned his attention more and more to her niece and Miss King.
As their ages were so much nearer his this seemed perfectly natural, and excited no suspicion or remark. Aunt Wealthy was quite willing to resign him to them; for—a very child in innocent trustfulness—she had no thought of any evil design on the part of the handsome, attractive young stranger so warmly recommended to her kindness and hospitality by an old and valued friend, and only rejoiced to see the young folks enjoying themselves so much together.
Before leaving Lansdale Mr. Dinsmore had provided his daughter with a gentle, but spirited and beautiful little pony, and bade her ride out every day when the weather was favorable, as was her custom at home. At the same time he cautioned her never to go alone; but always to have Simon riding in her rear, and, if possible, a lady friend at her side.
Dr. King was not wealthy, and having a large family to provide for, kept no horse except the one he used in his practice; but Elsie, with her well-filled purse, was more than content to furnish ponies for her friends Lottie and Nettie whenever they could accompany her; and matters were so arranged by their indulgent mother that one or both could do so every day.
It was not long before Mr. Egerton joined them in these excursions also, having made an arrangement with a livery-stable keeper for the daily use of a horse. And gradually his attention, in the beginning about equally divided between the two, or the three, were paid more and more exclusively to Elsie.
She was not pleased with him in their earlier interviews, she could scarcely have told why; but there was an intuitive feeling that he was not one to be trusted. That, however, gradually gave way under the fascinations of his fine person, agreeable manners, and intellectual conversation. He was very plausible and captivating, she full of charity and ready to believe the best of everybody, and so, little by little, he won her confidence and esteem so completely that at length she had almost forgotten that her first impression had not been favorable.
He went regularly to the church she, her aunt, and the Kings attended, appearing an interested listener, and devout worshipper; and that not on the Sabbath only, but also at the regular weekday evening service; he seemed also to choose his associates among good, Christian people. The natural inference from all this was that he too was a Christian, or at least a professor of religion; and thus all our friends soon came to look upon him as such, and to feel the greater friendship for, and confidence in him.
He found that Elsie's beauty would bear the closest scrutiny, that her graces of person and mind were the more apparent the more thoroughly she was known; that she was highly educated and accomplished, possessed of a keen intellect, and talents of no common order, and a wonderful sweetness of disposition. He acknowledged to himself that, even leaving money out of the question, she was a prize any man might covet; yet that if she were poor, he would never try to win her. A more voluptuous woman would have suited him better. Elsie's very purity made her distasteful to him, his own character seeming so much blackened by contrast that at times he could but loathe and despise himself.