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he is “a man of strong sense, firm faith, and ardent piety, but thoughtful and stern” (p. 98)—all of these in her mind strong recommendations. Then, in chapter XII, she finds that he also possesses “true benevolence, and gentle, considerate kindness” when she accidentally encounters him in the cottage of a poor elderly woman. She is there as part of her quiet efforts to help the local poor (reading to the woman and mending her son’s shirt); then he walks in holding the woman’s strayed cat. It is a quiet, domestic moment, quietly observed (even to the detail of the cottager brushing the cat hair off his coat), but Agnes learns a great deal about Mr. Weston from it. He is kind to animals (he has rescued the cat); he is kind to the humblest of his parishioners (he knows how the old woman will worry about the animal); and he is serious about his duty (not only is he out in the rain but he has risked angering Mr. Murray, who sharply reproves his concern for a mere beast). Though Agnes is hesitant to reveal to herself (and thus to readers) her true feelings for Mr. Weston, despite her claim that she will keep no secrets from them, it takes no great cleverness to see that from this moment on she is profoundly in love with him.
    Many readers have found unsatisfactory the courtship that increasingly dominates the novel as it moves quickly toward its close. In fact, there is relatively little that by conventional standards can be deemed to be courtship. Here Brontë no doubt portrays what many Victorian romances must have been like: For a governess like Agnes and a poor country curate like Mr. Weston, there were few opportunities to meet and even fewer where they might be alone for more than a moment. Yet if this limited scope for interaction made it difficult to get to know one another, it was not impossible—all the more important, then, that they learn as much as possible from the chances they had. For both Agnes and Mr. Weston, skilled as they are in self-examination, each carefully scrutinizing the other and learning enough to make the right judgment, given the few moments they have together, it is a challenge they can and do meet.
    The plot, then, that keeps them largely apart from one another is no accident on Brontë’s part. For if they are good readers of each other’s characters and hearts, each will persist in believing in the other’s love. The lack of any traditional expected sign of that love (trysts, letters, betrothals) is only proof of its depth. Yet there is more tested here than just the old maxim that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Agnes must learn one more painful lesson: that Hope (as she personifies it in her musings) itself is a human failing. Only God knows our fates, and only by serving him can we lead any life worth living. Thinking, in her disappointment, that she would rather die than live without her love requited, she eventually realizes that happiness is not her right—and that her life should be devoted to promoting the welfare of those around her. Only now, properly chastised, is Agnes ready to be rewarded by union with the man she loves. We see Mr. Weston only through Agnes’s eyes, so we are unable to view his struggles as fully he might see them himself, but ultimately we are assured that Mr. Weston is also living the very same lesson.
    When, after long absence, Mr. Weston at last does reappear (hardly an accident, since he has been searching for her for months) and offers his proposal of marriage (properly speaking with Mrs. Grey before he even approaches Agnes on the subject), the atmosphere is reminiscent of Mr. Knightley’s proposal to Jane Austen’s Emma—we know as he speaks that he has long been in love with her, but he must be tested by being obliged to wait until the right moment to speak. And, just as Mr. Knightley says that when he feels deeply he must speak plainly, Mr. Weston engages in no sentimental repartee with his intended: “‘You love me then?’