Faugh!--I will make an end of this story;there is something in it discordant to honest ears.I left the house the next day,and returned to Scotland in a state so near to phrenzy,that I take it the shades sometimes ran into one another.R----met me the day after I arrived,and will tell you the way I was in.I was like a person in a high fever;only mine was in the mind instead of the body.It had the same irritating,uncomfortable effect on the bye-standers.I was incapable of any application,and don't know what I should have done,had it not been for the kindness of -----.I came to see you,to "bestow some of my tediousness upon you,"but you were gone from home.Everything went on well as to the law business;and as it approached to a conclusion,I wrote to my good friend P----to go to M----,who had married her sister,and ask him if it would be worth my while to make her a formal offer,as soon as I was free,as,with the least encouragement,I was ready to throw myself at her feet;and to know,in case of refusal,whether I might go back there and be treated as an old friend.Not a word of answer could be got from her on either point,notwithstanding every importunity and intreaty;but it was the opinion of M----that I might go and try my fortune.I did so with joy,with something like confidence.I thought her giving no positive answer implied a chance,at least,of the reversion of her favour,in case I behaved well.All was false,hollow,insidious.The first night after I got home,I slept on down.In Scotland,the flint had been my pillow.But now I slept under the same roof with her.What softness,what balmy repose in the very thought!I saw her that same day and shook hands with her,and told her how glad I was to see her;and she was kind and comfortable,though still cold and distant.Her manner was altered from what it was the last time.She still absented herself from the room,but was mild and affable when she did come.She was pale,dejected,evidently uneasy about something,and had been ill.
I thought it was perhaps her reluctance to yield to my wishes,her pity for what I suffered;and that in the struggle between both,she did not know what to do.How I worshipped her at these moments!We had a long interview the third day,and I thought all was doing well.I found her sitting at work in the window-seat of the front parlour;and on my asking if I might come in,she made no objection.I sat down by her;she let me take her hand;I talked to her of indifferent things,and of old times.I asked her if she would put some new frills on my shirts?---"With the greatest pleasure."If she could get THE LITTLEIMAGE mended?"It was broken in three pieces,and the sword was gone,but she would try."I then asked her to make up a plaid silk which I had given her in the winter,and which she said would make a pretty summer gown.I so longed to see her in it!--"She had little time to spare,but perhaps might!"Think what I felt,talking peaceably,kindly,tenderly with my love,--not passionately,not violently.I tried to take pattern by her patient meekness,as I thought it,and to subdue my desires to her will.I then sued to her,but respectfully,to be admitted to her friendship--she must know I was as true a friend as ever woman had--or if there was a bar to our intimacy from a dearer attachment,to let me know it frankly,as I shewed her all my heart.
She drew out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes "of tears which sacred pity had engendered there."Was it so or not?I cannot tell.But so she stood (while I pleaded my cause to her with all the earnestness,and fondness in the world)with the tears trickling from her eye-lashes,her head stooping,her attitude fixed,with the finest expression that ever was seen of mixed regret,pity,and stubborn resolution;but without speaking a word,without altering a feature.It was like a petrifaction of a human face in the softest moment of passion."Ah!"I said,"how you look!I have prayed again and again while I was away from you,in the agony of my spirit,that I might but live to see you look so again,and then breathe my last!"I intreated her to give me some explanation.
In vain!At length she said she must go,and disappeared like a spirit.That week she did all the little trifling favours I had asked of her.The frills were put on,and she sent up to know if I wanted any more done.She got the Buonaparte mended.This was like healing old wounds indeed!How?As follows,for thereby hangs the conclusion of my tale.Listen.
I had sent a message one evening to speak to her about some special affairs of the house,and received no answer.I waited an hour expecting her,and then went out in great vexation at my disappointment.
