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But with the contemplation of the second came the “tug of war.” Florence with all her self-belief, with all her happy confidence in the irresistible nature of her charms, felt at a loss. “Tug of war” is not a happy quotation in this instance, for it was no case of Greek versus Greek, but the involuntary repulsion of an utterly alien nature, which so baffled this girl in all her efforts. Ralph puzzled her. There were so many things about him which he could not understand. No wonder! For, if only she had known it, it would have been nearer the truth to say that there was hardly one thing about him; which, with all the good-will in the world, all the capacity for lending herself to his peculiarities on which she prided herself, she could ever have come to understand.

Her opinion of human nature in general was by no means an exalted one. Disinterested goodness, in the highest sense, was to her incredible, or rather inconceivable. Strange, at first sight, this may appear. Strange in so young a girl, for Florence was little more than twenty, and her actual experience of the world had not been very extensive. Strange, and no less sad, for the disbelief, or slowness to believe, in the truth and goodness of our fellows, which is almost excusable in a soured and world-tried man or woman of middle age, revolts and repels us in a very young person. Meeting with it we cannot but suspect some terrible defect in the early up-bringing of such an one, if not some crooked tendency of peculiar strength innate in the character itself.