She often wept as she talked, and much oftener sighed. She looked at me
twice with an eye of undoubted gentleness, and three times with an eye
tending to compassion and softness; but its benign rays were as often
snatched back, as I may say, and her face averted, as if her sweet eyes
were not to be trusted, and could not stand against my eager eyes;
seeking, as they did, for a lost heart in her's, and endeavouring to
penetrate to her very soul.

More than once I took her hand. She struggled not much against the
freedom. I pressed it once with my lips--she was not very angry. A
frown indeed--but a frown that had more distress in it than indignation.

How came the dear soul, (clothed as it is with such a silken vesture,) by
all its steadiness?* Was it necessary that the active gloom of such a
tyrant of a father, should commix with such a passive sweetness of a
will-less mother, to produce a constancy, an equanimity, a steadiness, in
the daughter, which never woman before could boast of? If so, she is
more obliged to that despotic father than I could have imagined a
creature to be, who gave distinction to every one related to her beyond
what the crown itself can confer.


* See Vol. I. Letters IX. XIV. and XIX. for what she herself says on that
steadiness which Mr. Lovelace, though a deserved sufferer by it, cannot
help admiring.


I hoped, I said, that she would admit of the intended visit, which I had
so often mentioned, of the two ladies.