proceed peacefully and powerfully in your course without alarming by one eccentric movement. It was not my present intention to utter one word of love to her, or to reveal one glimpse of the fire in which I wasted. Presumptuous, I never have been; presumptuous, I never will be: rather than even seem selfish and interested, I would resolutely rise, gird my loins, part and leave her, and seek, on the other side of the globe, a new life, cold and barren as the rock the salt tide daily washes. My design this morning was to take of her a near scrutiny—to read a line in the page of her heart: before I left, I determined to know what I was leaving.
"I had some quills to make into pens: most men's hands would have trembled when their hearts were so stirred; mine went to work steadily, and my voice, when I called it into exercise, was firm.
"'This day-week you will be alone at Fieldhead, Miss Keeldar.'
"'Yes: I rather think my uncle's intention to go is a settled one now.'
"'He leaves you dissatisfied.'
"'He is not pleased with me.'
"'He departs as he came—no better for his journey: this is mortifying.'
"'I trust the failure of his plans will take from him all inclination to lay new ones.'
"'In his way, Mr. Sympson honestly wished you well. All he has done, or intended to do, he believed to be for the best.'
"'You are kind to undertake the defence of a man
