childhood seemed to her pure and inexperienced mind
the crimes of a heart naturally distorted and evil; my jesting vein,
which, though it never, even in the wantonness of youth, attacked the
substances of good, seldom respected its semblances and its forms, she
considered as the effusions of malignity; and even the bursts of love,
kindness, and benevolence, which were by no means unfrequent in my wild
and motley character, were so foreign to her stillness of temperament
that they only revolted her by their violence, instead of affecting her
by their warmth.

Nor did she like me the better for the mutual understanding between my
uncle and myself. On the contrary, shocked by the idle and gay turn
of the knight's conversation, the frivolities of his mind, and his
heretical disregard for the forms of the religious sect which she so
zealously espoused, she was utterly insensible to the points which
redeemed and ennobled his sterling and generous character; utterly
obtuse to his warmth of heart,--his overflowing kindness of
disposition,--his charity,--his high honour,--his justice of principle,
that nothing save benevolence could warp,--and the shrewd, penetrating
sense, which, though often clouded by foibles and humorous eccentricity,
still made the stratum of his intellectual composition. Nevertheless,
despite her prepossessions against us both, there was in her temper
something so gentle, meek, and unupbraiding, that even the sense of
injustice lost its sting, and one could not help loving the softness of
her character, while one was most chilled by its frigidity. Anger, hope,
fear, the faintest breath or sign of passion, never seemed to stir the
breezeless languor of her feelings; and quiet was so inseparable from
her image that I have almost thought, like that people described by
Herodotus, her very sleep could never be disturbed by dreams.

Yes! how fondly, how tenderly I loved her! What tears, secret but deep,
bitter but unreproaching, have I retired to shed, when I caught her
cold and unaffectionate glance! How (unnoticed and uncared for) have I
watched and prayed and wept without her door when a transitory sickness
or suffering detained her within; and how, when stretched myself upon
the feverish bed to which my early weakness of frame often condemned
me,--how have I counted the moments to her punctilious and brief visit,
and started as I caught her footstep, and felt my heart leap within me
as she approached! and