rl of twenty. He had gone
on reasoning through all the days of his manhood on the idea of a
staid, noble-minded wife, grave and sedate, the fit companion in
experience of her husband. He had spoken with admiration of reticent
characters, full of self-control and dignity; and he hoped--he
trusted, that all this time he had not been allowing himself
unconsciously to fall in love with a wild-hearted, impetuous girl,
who knew nothing of life beyond her father's house, and who chafed
under the strict discipline enforced there. For it was rather a
suspicious symptom of the state of Mr Farquhar's affections, that
he had discovered the silent rebellion which continued in Jemima's
heart, unperceived by any of her own family, against the severe laws
and opinions of her father. Mr Farquhar shared in these opinions; but
in him they were modified, and took a milder form. Still, he approved
of much that Mr Bradshaw did and said; and this made it all the more
strange that he should wince so for Jemima, whenever anything took
place which he instinctively knew that she would dislike. After an
evening at Mr Bradshaw's, when Jemima had gone to the very verge
of questioning or disputing some of her father's severe judgments,
Mr Farquhar went home in a dissatisfied, restless state of mind,
which he was almost afraid to analyse. He admired the inflexible
integrity--and almost the pomp of principle--evinced by Mr Bradshaw
on every occasion; he wondered how it was that Jemima could not see
how grand a life might be, whose every action was shaped in obedience
to some eternal law; instead of which, he was afraid she rebelled
against every law, and was only guided by impulse. Mr Farquhar had
been taught to dread impulses as promptings of the devil. Sometimes,
if he tried to present her father's opinions before her in another
form, so as to bring himself and her rather more into that state
of agreement he longed for, she flashed out upon him with the
indignation of difference that she dared not show to, or before,
her father, as if she had some diviner instinct which taught her
more truly than they knew, with all their experience; at least, in
her first expressions there seemed something good and fine; but
opposition made her angry and irritable, and the arguments which he
was constantly provoking (whenever he was with her in her father's
absence) frequently ended in some vehemence of expression on her part
that offended Mr Farquhar, who did not s