““Besides,’ he added, ‘Catriona Ellangowan is a charming woman. I nearly married her myself once, but she very rightly turned me down for Ellangowan who is a first-rate fellow.’ Mrs Belton was a little anxious over this difference of opinion and slightly ashamed of her daughter’s incivility, though she knew it sprang largely from the nervous state that an engagement can put the most level-headed young woman into, but she could not help being secretly amused by Elsa’s unconcealed surprise and mortification that Captain Hornby, who was considerably her senior and had been about a great deal, should have so far forgotten himself as to prefer any woman to her before he had met her.””
