expression of that exaltation of feeling which only lasts in a man
while he is in love, I cannot say. It was not for me to know her
heart. It is not ordained that these beautiful secrets of feeling
should be revealed, where they might prove to be the sweetest
knowledge we could have.

Though the days flew by, days filled with the busy nothings of
prosperity, they bore no meaning. I shifted the hours, as one shifts
the kaleidoscope, with an eye only to their movement. Neither the
remembrance of yesterday nor the hope of to-morrow stimulated me. The
mere fact of breathing had ceased to be a happiness, since the day I
entered Miss Black's school. But I was not yet thoughtful. As for my
position, I was loved and I was hated, and it pleased me as much to be
hated as to be loved. My acquaintances were kind enough to let me know
that I was generally thought proud, exacting, ill-natured, and apt
to expect the best of everything. But one thing I know of myself
then--that I concealed nothing; the desires and emotions which are
usually kept as a private fund I displayed and exhausted. My audacity
shocked those who possessed this fund. My candor was called anything
but truthfulness; they named it sarcasm, cunning, coarseness, or tact,
as those were constituted who came in contact with me. Insight into
character, frankness, generosity, disinterestedness, were sometimes
given me. Veronica alone was uncompromising; she put aside by instinct
what baffled or attracted others, and, setting my real value upon me,
acted accordingly. I do not accuse her of injustice, but of a fierce
harshness which kept us apart for long years. As for her, she was
the most reticent girl I ever knew, and but for her explosive temper,
which betrayed her, she would have been a mystery. The difference in
our physical constitutions would have separated us, if there had been
no other cause. The weeks that she was confined to her room, preyed