ion than in gratifying my wishes!" On this we had some
farther talk, and I took nearly the whole of the lodgings at a hundred
guineas a year, that (as I said) she might have a little leisure to sit
at her needle of an evening, or to read if she chose, or to walk out
when it was fine. She was not in good health, and it would do her good
to be less confined. I would be the drudge and she should no longer be
the slave. I asked nothing in return. To see her happy, to make her
so, was to be so myself.--This was agreed to. I went over to Blackheath
that evening, delighted as I could be after all I had suffered, and lay
the whole of the next morning on the heath under the open sky, dreaming
of my earthly Goddess. This was Sunday. That evening I returned, for I
could hardly bear to be for a moment out of the house where she was, and
the next morning she tapped at the door--it was opened--it was she--she
hesitated and then came forward: she had got the little image in her
hand, I took it, and blest her from my heart. She said "They had been
obliged to put some new pieces to it." I said "I didn't care how it was
done, so that I had it restored to me safe, and by her." I thanked her
and begged to shake hands with her. She did so, and as I held the only
hand in the world that I never wished to let go, I looked up in her
face, and said "Have pity on me, have pity on me, and save me if you
can!" Not a word of answer, but she looked full in my eyes, as much as
to say, "Well, I'll think of it; and if I can, I will save you!" We
talked about the expense of repairing the figure. "Was the man
waiting?"--"No, she had fetched it on Saturday evening." I said I'd
give her the money in the course of the day, and then shook hands with
her again in token of reconciliation; and she went waving out of the
room, but at the door turned round and looked full at me, as she did the
first time she beguiled me of my heart. This was the last.--

All that day I longed to go down stairs to ask her and her mother to set
out with me for Scotland on Wednesday, and on Saturday I would make her
my wife. Something withheld me. In the evening, however, I could not
rest without seeing her, and I said to her younger sister, "Betsey, if
Sarah will come up now, I'll pay her what she laid out for me the other
day."--"My sister's gone out, Sir," was the answer. What again! thought
I, That's somewhat sudden. I told P---- her sitting in the window-seat