CHAPTER X
On the morning of a certain Saturday, therefore, which day of the week he
always made a holiday, he resolved to let her know without further delay
that he loved her; and the rather that on the next day he was engaged to
preach for a brother clergyman at Deemouth, and felt that, his fate with
Maggie unknown, his mind would not be cool enough for him to do well in the
pulpit. But neither disappointment nor a fresh love had yet served to set
him free from his old vanity or arrogance: he regarded his approaching
declaration as about to confer great honour as well as favour upon the
damsel of low estate, about to be invited to share in his growing
distinction. In his late disappointment he had asked a lady to descend a
little from her social pedestal, in the belief that he offered her a
greater than proportionate counter-elevation; and now in his suit to Maggie
he was almost unable to conceive a possibility of failure. When she would
have shown him into the kitchen, he took her by the arm, and leading her to
the _ben-end_, at once began his concocted speech.
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