to wish for this plan of mine said with a j not appear to answer for if i guess right we are both disappointed in the result you because i have asked almost the only thing you would not do to please me and i because your answer me that you do not love me for since we are all imperfect creatures i have no idea of that love which does not seek to improve its object and how can this be done when there is wilful blindness to each other s defects think anything but that said affectionately taking her hand you have seen me as i am my naked soul has been revealed to you without disguise for i would scorn to purchase what i most desire by false pretensions of any kind whatever yet i know and have long known that for any one to see me thus and love me would be impossible and when i tell you that all the affection i am capable of feeling is in you that you are the good angel that must decide my destiny and that i should long since have disclosed these my real sentiments but for the cowardly dread of breaking the spell which has been the only comfort of my life i await your answer without fear for those who hope nothing escape the anguish of disappointment yet speak to me dear for i would hear the last fatal sound like the closing of the prison door upon the criminal rather than my darkness should be again disturbed by such faint and distant of forbidden happiness as even i at times have up a deep blush like the crimson glow of evening when it suddenly bursts forth upon every cloud and and of the western shore had risen to the face of while was speaking thrice she strove to answer but the tears that fell one another from her downcast eyes seemed to be flowing with too full a tide for words at last she mastered her rebellious heart and replied � i have long loved you with what i believed to be the affection of a sister what that affection might have become it would be fruitless now to conjecture for you compel me to express my full that with one whose sentiments and feelings are like your ow there could be no real happiness you are right exclaimed with bitterness it would be worse than folly to unite yourself to misery in this world where truth and sincerity of feeling are without worth or value no man should ask a woman to share his fortune without he could offer her a light heart and sunny brow and a home of merriment and joy you are right to ask yourself where would be the gain i should be a dull companion for a winter s evening and you know it well hear me again said as she appealed to him through her tears that now were falling without control you wrong me if you think it is for myself only that i am speaking you compel me to say more than woman should say to tell you that i am unable to imagine any gratification to my natural feelings so great as that of cheering your hours of and sorrow and that i would rather share your fortune were it as my own than be set apart for the brightest destiny that ever to the lot of mortals but in this world we live not for the enjoyment of the present moment only and marriage is a holy and enduring bond and woe the woman who enters into it with base or selfish views either you must be aware that the sentiments you entertain of human life and the duty of man to his fellow man are widely at with what i believe to be right or my words have hitherto strongly my thoughts i know not how far a blind and love might in time carry me on towards with your views or how it might soothe me into a dangerous and luxurious repose in the midst of that enjoyment which i am unable to think of anywhere but with you but i am not blind now i wish not to make an idol even of you i cannot say i believe that in the present state of your mind you could assist me to correct my own i am pictures of private life far from the presumption of taking both of your and mine and i know that i must answer at the last day for the decision of this moment ah make me what you will exclaimed if this be the barrier us you shall mould me to your wishes k her d it is easy replied she to say that we are willing to be by those we love but would it not be safer and wiser to submit to the of him who first created us for we know not that those whom we most admire are able to form a correct notion of what is fitted to our individual good but we do know that a wise providence has placed us here for his own gracious purposes and that he will require us to render an account of how these purposes have been a vain woman may persuade herself that she has power to change the character of the man who loves her but i am not yet to learn that the change which is wrought merely for the sake of a can neither be lasting nor sincere said you are a sage cold you know not what it is to love how is it possible to convince you that i do sighed and musing for a while with her eyes fixed upon the distant horizon she resumed � if it is so easy to change the heart and to adopt new habits of thinking and feeling this may 