ingenuous and bold nature: he, worldly wise, cautious, and
calculating the end from the beginning. Yet were his aspirations noble
and untainted with a sordid or mean motive. He would not for a world
have sacrificed the happiness of his sister, but he thought it not
unbecoming to promote his personal views by her means, provided it
could be done without injury to herself. He was a politician, and
young as he was his scheming brain already formed plans of family and
personal aggrandizement, extending far into the future. Anne was mixed
up with these in his mind, and he hoped, by the marriage connection
she might form, to increase a family influence in furtherance of his
plans. These seemed likely to be defeated by Anne's partiality for
Pownal, and the young man felt the disappointment as keenly as his
cool philosophical nature would permit. But let it not be thought that
William Bernard brought worldly prudence into all his plans. His love
of Faith Armstrong had no connection with any such feelings, and she
would have been equally the object of his admiration and choice, had
she been a portionless maiden instead of the heiress of the wealthy
Mr. Armstrong. We will not say that her prospect of succeeding to
a large fortune was disagreeable to her lover, but though when he
thought of her it would sometimes occur to his mind, yet was it no
consideration that corrupted the purity of his affection.

Anne, when she left her brother, hastened to her chamber and subjected
her heart to a scrutiny it had never experienced. She was startled
upon an examination her brother's language had suggested, to find the
interest Pownal had awakened in her bosom. She had been pleased to be
in his company, and to receive from him those little attentions which
young men are in the habit of rendering to those of the same age of
the other sex: a party never seemed complete from which he was absent:
there was no one whose hand she more willingly accepted for the dance,
or whose praise was more welcome when she rose from the piano: but
though the emotions she felt in his presence were so agreeable, she
had not suspected them to be those of love. Her brother had abruptly
awakened her to the reality. In the simplicity of her innocence, and
with somewhat of a maiden shame, she blamed herself for allowing any
young man to become to her an object of so much interest, and shrunk
from the idea of having at some time unwittingly betrayed herself. She
determ