pay a two-days' visit at a house in the vicinity. Until the evening of
the first day I was not sensible of her absence. It was then, and at the
customary hour of our reunion, that, for the first time, I experienced,
with alarm, a sense of loneliness and desertion--that I became
tremblingly conscious of the secret growth of an affection that had
waited only for the time and circumstance to make its presence and its
power known and dreaded. In the daily enjoyment of her society, I had
not estimated its influence and value. Once denied it, and I dared not
acknowledge to myself how precious it had become, how silently and
fatally it had wrought upon my heart. The impropriety and folly of
self-indulgence were at once apparent--yes, the vanity and
wickedness--and, startled by what looked like guilt, I determined
manfully to rise superior to temptation. I took refuge in my books; they
lacked their usual interest, were ineffectual in reducing the ruffled
mind to order. I rose and paced my room, but I could not escape from
agitating thought. I sought the minister in his study, and hoped to
bring myself to calm and reason by dwelling seriously on the business of
the day--with him, the father of the lady, and _my master_. He was not
there. He had left the parsonage with Doctor Mayhew an hour before. I
walked into the open air restless and unhappy, relying on the freshness
and repose of night to be subdued and comforted. It was a night to
soften anger--to conquer envy--to destroy revenge--beautiful and bright.
The hills were bathed in liquid silvery light, and on their heights, and
in the vale, on all around, lay passion slumbering. What could I find on
such a night, but favour and incitement, support and confirmation,
flattery and delusion? Every object ministered to the imagination, and
love had given that wings. I trembled as I pursued my road, and fuel
found its unobstructed way rapidly to the flame within. Self-absorbed, I
wandered on. I did not choose my path. I believed I did not, and I
stopped at length--before the house that held her. I gazed upon it with