the sedate and dutiful acceptance of obedient innocence, a thing of
small account indeed where it is rooted only in sentiment and
customary preference, but of inestimable value in such cases as
hers, where action followed upon acceptance.

Richard, again, was under the quickening masterdom of a well-stored,
active mind, a strong will, a judgment that sought to keep its
balance even, and whose descended scale never rebounded, a
conscience which, through all the mists of human judgment, eyed ever
the blotted glimmer of some light beyond; and all these elements of
power were gathered in his own father, in whom the customary
sternness of the puritan parent had at length blossomed in
confidence, a phase of love which, to such a mind as Richard's, was
even more enchanting than tenderness. To be trusted by such a
father, to feel his mind and soul present with him, acknowledging
him a fit associate in great hopes and noble aims, was surely and
ought to be, whatever the sentimentalist may say, some comfort for
any sorrow a youth is capable of, such being in general only too
lightly remediable. I wonder if any mere youth ever suffered, from a
disappointment in love, half the sense of cureless pain which, with
one protracted pang, gnaws at the heart of the avaricious old man
who has dropt a sovereign into his draw-well.

But the relation of Dorothy and Richard, although ordinary in
outward appearance, was of no common kind; and while these two thus
fell apart from each other in their outer life, each judging the
other insensible to the call of highest rectitude, neither of them
knew how much his or her heart was confident of the other's
integrity. In respect of them, the lovely simile, in Christabel, of
the parted cliffs, may be carried a little farther, for, under the