desire (though he advised her not to adopt such a measure, save for the
most urgent reasons), another residence. "Send me in return," he said, as
he concluded, "a lock of your hair. I want nothing to remind me of your
beauty; but I want some token of the heart of whose affection I am so
mournfully proud. I will wear it as a charm against the contamination of
that world of which you are so happily ignorant--as a memento of one
nature beyond the thought of self--as a surety that, in finding within
this base and selfish quarter of earth, one soul so warm, so pure as
yours, I did not deceive myself, and dream. If we ever meet again, may
you have then found some one happier than I am, and in his tenderness have
forgotten all of me save one kind remembrance.--Beautiful and dear
Lucilla, adieu! If I have not given way to the luxury of being beloved by
you, it is because your generous self-abandonment has awakened within a
heart too selfish to others a real love for yourself."

To this letter Godolphin had, hour after hour, expected a reply. He
received none--not even the lock of hair for which he had pressed. He was
disappointed--angry, with Lucilla--dissatisfied with himself. "How
bitterly," thought he, "the wise Saville would smile at my folly! I have
renounced the bliss of possessing this singular and beautiful being; for
what?--a scruple which she cannot even comprehend, and at which, in her
friendless and forlorn state, the most starched of her dissolute
countrywomen would smile as a ridiculous punctilio. And, in truth, had I
fled hence with her, should I not have made her through out life
happier--far happier, than she will be now? Nor would she, in that
happiness, have felt, like an English girl, any pang of shame. _Here,_
the tie would have never been regarded as a degradation; nor does she,
recurring to the simple laws of nature, imagine than any one _could_ so
regard it. Besides, inexperienced as she is--the creature of
impulse--will she not fall a victim to some more artful and less generous