He ascribed the
poverty of her attire to the attempts to keep herself respectable, which
Ellen during supper had more than once alluded to. He had been charmed
with the way in which she had declared that a pint of beer would make her
tipsy, and had only allowed herself to be forced into drinking the whole
after a good deal of remonstrance. To him she appeared a very angel
dropped from the sky, and all the more easy to get on with for being a
fallen one.
As he walked up Fetter Lane with her towards Laystall Street, he thought
of the wonderful goodness of God towards him in throwing in his way the
very person of all others whom he was most glad to see, and whom, of all
others, in spite of her living so near him, he might have never fallen in
with but for a happy accident.
When people get it into their heads that they are being specially
favoured by the Almighty, they had better as a general rule mind their
p's and q's, and when they think they see the devil's drift with more
special clearness, let them remember that he has had much more experience
than they have, and is probably meditating mischief.
Already during supper the thought that in Ellen at last he had found a
woman whom he could love well enough to wish to live with and marry had
flitted across his mind, and the more they had chatted the more reasons
kept suggesting themselves for thinking that what might be folly in
ordinary cases would not be folly in his.
Pages:
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536