with her of this world and the next; ever softening her mind by gentle degrees, till she was fit to receive the truth, and he could speak out. His tone had become patriarchal; his countenance kind, intensely sweet, but sorrowful; his step slow, and his action decisive. In the great face of nature, he often made her shift her guilty eyes at what her ears received: under the heavens, walking on the earth, she was disarmed of vanity; fear, sorrow, and tears, became habitual. But above all, love for the object, on whom she felt a kind of hope she might rely for future forgiveness; and as he was her lover only, and not her paramour, there was an awful distance between them, that worked in her a strange respect for him.
Edward began to see a change in her conduct; such as great esteem suddenly shown, and curbed impatience when he told blunt and unpleasant truths; and above all, in silent moments, tears, sharp and agonizing tears, unprovoked, flowing from the rifts of a broken heart. So he laboured with secret prayer, and with watching, and every patient endeavour in his virtuous work.
Now it happened about this time, that this woman's mother died, who had been much respected, virtuous, and good. Edward would
