black and blue, to bring her back again;
and then sat down and looked at her as silly as such a poor girl as
she!--Well did she describe the passion I struggled with; and no one
can conceive how much my pride made me despise myself at times for the
little actions my love for her put me upon, and yet to find that love
increasing every day, as her charms and her resistance increased.--I
have caught myself in a raging fit, sometimes vowing I would have her,
and, at others, jealous that, to secure herself from my attempts, she
would throw herself into the arms of some menial or inferior, whom
otherwise she would not have thought of.

"Sometimes I soothed, sometimes threatened her; but never was
such courage, when her virtue seemed in danger, mixed with so
much humility, when her fears gave way to her hopes of a juster
treatment.--Then I would think it impossible (so slight an opinion had
I of woman's virtue) that such a girl as this, cottage-born, who
owed every thing to my family, and had an absolute dependence upon my
pleasure: myself not despicable in person or mind, as I supposed;
she unprejudiced in any man's favour, at an age susceptible of
impressions, and a frame and constitution not ice or snow: 'Surely,'
thought I, 'all this frost must be owing to the want of fire in my
attempts to thaw it: I used to dare more, and succeed better. Shall
such a girl as this awe me by her rigid virtue? No, she shall not.'

"Then I would resolve to be more in earnest. Yet my love was a
traitor, that was more faithful to _her_ than to _me_; it had more
honour in it at bottom than I had designed. Awed by her unaffected
innocence, and a virtue I had never before encountered, so uniform and
immovable, the moment I _saw_ her I was half disarmed; and I courted
her consent to that, which, though I was not likely to obtain, yet it
went against me to think of extorting by violence. Yet marriage was
never in my thoughts: I scorned so much as to promise it.

"To what numberless mean things did not this unmanly passion subject
me!--I used to watch for her letters, though mere prittle-prattle and
chit-chat, received them with delight, though myself was accused in
them, and stigmatized as I deserved.

"I would listen meanly at her chamber-door, try to overhear her little
conversation; in vain attempted to suborn Mrs. Jervis to my purposes,
inconsistently talking of honour, when no one step I took, or action
I attempted, shewed any thing like