Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 3).djvu/129

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bending her gentle head to swift decay. Oh! gracious heaven, if my child is destined to an early grave, close these sad eyes 'ere that destiny be accomplished."

He wished to have the sorrows of her heart acknowledged to him; the acknowledgment would give him a right to offer his sympathy and counsel: and the sympathy, the counsel of a parent, might perhaps, he thought, be efficacious. But though he wished such a divulgement, he would not desire it, well knowing the delicacy of the female mind, and how unwillingly it must confess a hopeless passion.