Mr Hogarth's Will by Catherine Helen Spence

Mr. Brandon had come home with the intention of marrying, and had flirted a good deal during the six or eight months of his stay in England, but he had seen so many young ladies that one had driven another out of his head. He thought he might have fallen in love with Miss Harriett Phillips, who, though not very young, would in all other respects be very suitable, and who, he had no doubt, would accept him; but still he could not manage to cultivate an attachment strong enough to warrant such a desperate step as a proposal. Ever since he had seen Elsie Melville at Mrs. Rennie's party, her face and form, and her pleasant voice with its Scotch accent, recurred more frequently in his thoughts than those of any woman he had seen. Her elegance, her gentleness, her sprightliness, had struck him at sight, and her forlorn condition was very interesting.

Her poetical talents, of which he had heard from Peggy, impressed him a good deal, and the manner in which she had taken so industriously to the only means of earning a livelihood open to her, though one which was so far beneath her, had certainly called forth his respect.