Involuntarily, I approached her with more tenderness than my vexing

spirit had recently permitted me to show; but I recoiled from

the effects of my own attentions. I was vexed to perceive that my

approaches occasioned a start, a flutter--a shrinking inward--as

if my advance had been obtrusive, and my attempts at familiarity

offensive.

I was then little schooled in the intricacies of the female heart.

I little conjectured the origin of that seemingly paradoxical

movement of the mind, which, in the case of one, sensitive and

exquisitely delicate, prompts to flight from the very pursuit which

it would yet invite; which dreads to be suspected of the secret

which it yet most loves to cherish, and seeks to protect, by

concealment, the feelings which it may not defend; even as the bird

hides the little fledglings of its care from the hunter, whom it

dare not attack.

Stupid, and worse than stupid, my blind heart saw nothing of

this, and perverted what it saw. I construed the conduct of Julia

into matter of offence, to be taken in high dudgeon and resolutely

resented; and I drew myself up stiffly when she appeared, and

by excess of ceremonious politeness only, avoided the reproach of

brutality. Yet, even at such moments, I could see that there was

a dewy reproach in her eyes, which should have humbled me, and

made me penitent. But the effects of fifteen years of injudicious

management were not to be dissipated in a few days even by the

Ithuriel spells of love. My sense of independence and self-resource

had been stimulated to a diseased excess, until, constantly on the

QUI VIVE, it became dogged and inflexible. It was a work of time

to soften me and make me relent; and the labor then was one of my

own secret thoughts, and unbiased private decision. The attempt to

persuade or reason me into a conviction was sure to be a failure.

Months passed in this manner without effecting any serious change

in Julia, or in bringing us a step nearer to one another. Meanwhile,

the sphere of my observation and importance increased, as the

circle of my acquaintance became extended. I was regarded as a

rising young man, and one likely to be successful ultimately in

my profession. The social privileges of my friends, the Edgertons,

necessarily became mine; and it soon occurred that I encountered my

uncle and his family in circles in which it was somewhat a matter

of pride with him to be permitted to move. This, as it increased my

importance in his sight, did not diminish his pains. But he treated

me now with constant deference, though with the same unvarying

coldness. When in the presence of others, he warmed a little. I

was then "his nephew;" and he would affect to speak with great

familiarity on the subject of my business, my interests, the last

case in which I was engaged, and so forth--the object of which was

to persuade third persons that our relations were precisely as they

should be, and as people would naturally suppose them.




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