"Well," said Crawford, after a course of rapid questions and reluctant answers; "I am happier than I was, because I now understand more clearly your opinion of me. You think me unsteady: easily swayed by the whim of the moment, easily tempted, easily put aside. With such an opinion, no wonder that-But we shall see.-It is not by protestations that I shall endeavour to convince you I am wronged; it is not by telling you that my affections are steady. My conduct shall speak for me; absence, distance, time shall speak for me. _They_ shall prove that, as far as you can be deserved by anybody, I do deserve you. You are infinitely my superior in merit; all _that_ I know. You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you beyond what-not merely beyond what one sees, because one never sees anything like it-but beyond what one fancies might be. But still I am not frightened. It is not by equality of merit that you can be won. 
"Well," said Crawford, after a course of rapid questions and reluctant answers; "I am happier than I was, because I now understand more clearly your opinion of me. You think me unsteady: easily swayed by the whim of the moment. But we shall see. My conduct shall speak for me; absence, distance, time shall speak for me. They shall prove that I do deserve you. You are infinitely my superior in merit, I know. You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you. But still I am not frightened. It is not by equality of merit that you can be won. 