t was identical with an eternal spinsterhood. "Am I, then," she
exclaimed, quite as passionately as a woman need do,--"am I, then, cut
off from a woman's dearest joys? What blasphemous nonsense! One thing is
plain: I am made to be a mother; the wife may take care of herself. I am
made to be a wife; the mistress may take care of _her_self. I am in the
Lord's hands," added the poor girl, who, whether or no she could forget
herself in an earthly love, had at all events this mark of a spontaneous
nature, that she could forget herself in a heavenly one. But in the
midst of her pious emotion, she was unable to subdue her conscience. It
smote her heavily for her meditated falsity to Richard, for her
miserable readiness to succumb to the strong temptation to seek a
momentary resting-place in his gaping heart. She recoiled from this
thought as from an act cruel and immoral. Was Richard's heart the place
for her now, any more than it had been a month before? Was she to apply
for comfort where she would not apply for counsel? Was she to drown her
decent sorrows and regrets in a base, a dishonest, an extemporized
passion? Having done the young man so bitter a wrong in intention,
nothing would appease her magnanimous remorse (as time went on) but to
repair it in fact. She went so far as keenly to regret the harsh words
she had cast upon him in the conservatory. He had been insolent and
unmannerly; but he had an excuse. Much should be forgiven him, for he
loved much. Even now that Gertrude had imposed upon her feelings a
sterner regimen than ever, she could not defend herself from a sweet and
sentimental thrill--a thrill in which, as we have intimated, there was
something of a tremor--at the recollection of his strident accents and
his angry eyes. It was yet far from her heart to desire a renewal,
however brief, of this exhibition. She wished simply to efface from the
young man's morbid soul the impression of a real contempt; for she
knew--or she thought that she knew--that against such an impression he
was capable of taking the most fatal and inconsiderate comfort.

Before many mornings had passed, accordingly, she had a horse saddled,
and, dispensing with attendance, she rode rapidly over to his farm. The
house door and half the windows stood open; but no answer came to her
repeated summons. She made her way to the rear of the house, to the
barn-yard, thinly tenanted by a few common fowl, and across the yard to
a road which skirted