Sink or Swim? , Volume II by Matilda Charlotte Houstoun

Arthur was not far wrong when he averred that his sister Rhoda was the / last girl in the world to make a successful _début_ in London society. / Shyness -- being entirely uncomprehended and believed in -- is too often / there mistaken for stupidity, or, at best, for a disinclination to be / pleased and to be "jolly. " Looking beneath the surface is too long a / process for the superficial observers of the present day; summary / condemnation takes little time, and lynch-law, in the shape of something / very like ostracism, is speedily pronounced. So Rhoda Vavasour -- whose / mother had been guilty of that terrible social blunder, namely, the / non-keeping up of her connections -- found herself, although rather pretty / and decidedly "nice," quite thrown away in the West-end world. Under / these circumstances, and feeling -- gentle though she was, and / humble-minded -- a little mortified and _délaissée_, Rhoda's heart / naturally turned again towards the man who, being but a country rector, / looked up to, loved, and appreciated her. For her -- almost partnerless, / and left, whether at ball, opera, or party, a good deal to her own / resources and reflections -- the memory of George Wallingford, together / with her pleasant country duties and avocations, was as a gleam of / summer sunshine, a green oasis in the peopled desert of her uncongenial / life. When, before her departure from Gillingham, the rector, meeting / her by chance as she was leaving the door of a poor dependent on her / kindness, stopped his horse, and by a few meaning words, and looks more / suggestive still, conveyed to her the knowledge that neither time nor / absence would erase her image from his heart, he of course committed / this disloyal act with eyes wide open to its impropriety. He knew, ay / better than did Arthur Vavasour, that he was, in thus secretly tampering / with a young girl's affections, committing a sin against his neighbour.

That sin might not, viewed abstractedly, be so heinous as that which / Rhoda's brother was, with equal audacity, committing; but in reality the / one man's guilt was little inferior to the other; both yielded to such / temptation as was within their reach, and the consequence in either case / was the punishment that had been so deservedly incurred.