l which is naturally foreign to your soul. The day
will arrive when I can with confidence place my hand in yours as your
wife, even as I now give it as your plighted bride."

I rapturously received it; but after a vain attempt to repress my
feelings, I entreated her to wed me then, and I would never cease
striving after the excellence she wished me to attain. But on that score
she was obdurate. Her hand must be the reward of my entire reformation,
not the precursor of it.

From that period I spent the greater portion of my time with Alice. She
was passionately fond of reading, and, what few women are, an excellent
classic scholar. She accounted for this by informing me that her father
had been originally designed for the church, and was educated with that
view; but afterward rebelled against the parental decree, and entered
the army. He was a passionate admirer of the old authors, and imparted
to his daughter his own knowledge of, and exceeding love for their
beauties.

Among the things cast on shore from the ship was a box of Mr. Crawford's
treasured books, and to them I added such modern works as were most
congenial to the taste of Alice. I have mentioned that my education had
not proceeded much beyond its first elements, and now for the first time
did I begin to appreciate the intense enjoyment found in literary
pursuits. I studied deeply, and was soon competent to converse with my
mistress on the beauties of her favorite authors. We then read together,
and I sought, while reading aloud the impassioned strains of the poet,
to express by the varied intonations of my voice the tender and
soul-thrilling emotions with which my listener inspired me; for I felt
when near her an ineffable satisfaction, as if the soul had found its
better part, and the being that was needed to complete my existence was
beside me. A holy calm pervaded my whole being--springing not from the
dull listlessness which falls over the stupid or inert, but from the
fullness of content. The assurance that I was making myself daily more
worthy to claim this beloved girl as my own, spread through my soul a
delicious, all-pervading sense of uninterrupted happiness. No man,
however rough, could thus associate with a delicate and refined woman
without acquiring some of the elegance which distinguished her. I
imperceptibly lost the clownish air which had so often bitterly
mortified me; and as my perceptions became more acute I saw in my own
manners all t