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Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice often takes the form
of repeating again and again a similar stroke of luck in the same quarter. It
appeared that Miss Keeldar - or her fortune - had by this time made a sensation
in the district, and produced an impression in quarters by her unthought of. No
less than three offers followed Mr. Wynne's - all more or less eligible. All
were in succession pressed on her by her uncle, and all in succession she
refused. Yet amongst them was more than one gentleman of unexceptionable
character, as well as ample wealth. Many besides her uncle asked what she meant,
and whom she expected to entrap, that she was so insolently fastidious.
    At last, the gossips thought they had found the key to her conduct, and her
uncle was sure of it; and, what is more, the discovery showed his niece to him
in quite a new light, and he changed his whole deportment to her accordingly.
    Fieldhead had, of late, been fast growing too hot to hold them both: the
suave aunt could not reconcile them; the daughters froze at the view of their
quarrels: Gertrude and Isabella whispered by the hour together in their
dressing-room, and became chilled with decorous dread if they chanced to be left
alone with their audacious cousin. But, as I have said, a change supervened: Mr.
Sympson was appeased and his family tranquillized.
    The village of Nunnely has been alluded to: its old church, its forest, its
monastic ruins. It had also its Hall, called the Priory - an older, a larger, a
more lordly abode than any Briarfield or Whinbury owned; and, what is more, it
had its man of title - its baronet, which neither Briarfield nor Whinbury could
boast. This possession - its proudest and most prized - had for years been
nominal only: the present baronet, a young man hitherto resident in a distant
province, was unknown on his Yorkshire estate.
    During Miss Keeldar's stay at the fashionable watering-place of Cliffbridge,
she and her friends had met with and been introduced to Sir Philip Nunnely. They
encountered him again and again on the sands, the cliffs, in the various walks,
sometimes at the public balls of the place. He seemed solitary; his manner was
very unpretending - too simple to be termed affable; rather timid than proud: he
did not condescend to their society - he seemed glad of it.
    With any unaffected individual, Shirley could easily and quickly cement an
acquaintance. She walked and talked with Sir
