was but too profound a sinner; yet sin it never was, sin it could not
be, to adore a beauty such as thine, my Agnes. Neither was it her
beauty by itself, and that only, which I sought at such times to
admire; there was a peculiar sort of double relation in which she stood
at moments of pleasurable expectation and excitement, since our little
Francis had become of an age to join our party, which made some aspects
of her character trebly interesting. She was a wife--and wife to one
whom she looked up to as her superior in understanding and in knowledge
of the world, whom, therefore, she leaned to for protection. On the
other hand, she was also a mother. Whilst, therefore, to her child she
supported the matronly part of guide, and the air of an experienced
person; to me she wore, ingenuously and without disguise, the part of a
child herself, with all the giddy hopes and unchastised imaginings of
that buoyant age. This double character, one aspect of which looks
towards her husband and one to her children, sits most gracefully upon
many a young wife whose heart is pure and innocent; and the collision
between the two separate parts imposed by duty on the one hand, by
extreme youth on the other, the one telling her that she is a
responsible head of a family and the depository of her husband's honor
in its tenderest and most vital interests, the other telling her,
through the liveliest language of animal sensibility, and through the
very pulses of her blood, that she is herself a child; this collision
gives an inexpressible charm to the whole demeanor of many a young
married woman, making her other fascinations more touching to her
husband, and deepening the admiration she excites; and the more so, as
it is a collision which cannot exist except among the very innocent.
Years, at any rate, will irresistibly remove this peculiar charm, and
gradually replace it by the graces of the matronly character. But in
Agnes this change had not yet been effected, partly from nature, and
partly from the extreme seclusion of her life. Hitherto she still