e and feel its inspirations, and believe you capable of
offending me."

"Thank you for the generous confidence, thank you. I am going and shall
remember this so long as I live, and when in my native land, will think
of it as too sacred for the keeping of any but myself."

"Are you really going to leave us, and so soon? I--I--would--but--"

"Miss Alice, I have trespassed too long already upon your brother's
hospitality; beside, Miss Alice, I begin to feel that his welcome is
worn out. Your brother, for some days, has seemed less cordial than was
his wont during the first weeks of my stay here."

"My brother, sir, is a strange being--a creature of whims and caprices.
There is nothing fixed or settled in his opinions or conduct. His
inviting you to spend the summer with us was a whim: one that has
astonished several who have not hesitated to express it. It is as
likely on his return from his river place, that he will devour you with
kindness as that he will meet you with the coldness he has manifested
for some days. Do not let your conduct be influenced by his whims."

"Miss Alice, I am suspicious, perhaps, by nature. I have thought that
you have avoided me lately. I have been very lonesome at times."

Alice lifted her bonnet from her head, and was swinging it by the
strings as she walked along for a few steps, when she stopped, and,
turning to her companion, said with a firm though timid voice: "I
cannot be deceitful. You have properly guessed: I have avoided you. It
was on your account as well as my own. My self-respect is in conflict
with my respect for you. I need not tell you why I avoided you; but I
will--conscious that I am speaking to a gentleman who will appreciate
my motives and preserve inviolate my communications. You saw my cousin
hurry away from here. She came to remain some weeks. The cause of her
going was my brother. From some strange, unaccountable cause he became
offended with her, and charged her with giving bad advice to me. What
she has said to me as advice since she came was in the privacy of my
bedroom, and in such tones that had he or another been in the chamber
they could not have overheard it. I know, sir, and in shame do I speak
it, that I am under the surveillance of the servants, who report to my
brother and my sister my every act and every word; and I know, too, my
brother's imagination supplies in many instances these reports. Why I
am thus watched I know not.

"My brother is my guard