At all these places and periods, when it was my lot to meet

with Julia, she was most usually the belle of the night. A dozen

attendants followed in her train, solicitous of all her smiles, and

only studious how to afford her pleasure. I, only, stood aloof--I,

who loved her with a more intense fervor than all, simply because

I had none, or few besides to love. The heart which has been evermore

denied, will always burn with this intensity. Its passion, once

enkindled, will be the all-absorbing flame. Devoted itself, it

exacts the most religious devotion; and, unless it receives it,

recoils upon its own resources, and shrouds itself in gloom, simply

to hide its sufferings from detection.

I affected that indifference to the charms of this maiden, which

no one of human sensibilities could have felt. Opinions might have

differed in respect to her beauty; but there could be none on

the score of her virtues and her amiability, and almost as few

on the possessions of her mind. Julia Clifford, though singularly

unobtrusive in society, very soon convinced all around her that

she had an excellent understanding, which study had improved, and

grace had adorned by all the most appropriate modes of cultivation.

Her steps were always followed by a crowd--her seat invariably

encircled by a group to itself. I looked on at a distance, wrapped up

in the impenetrable folds of a pride, whose sleeves were momently

plucked, as I watched, by the nervous fingers of jealousy and

suspicion. Sometimes I caught a timid glance of her eye, addressed

to the spot where I stood, full of inquiry, and, as I could not

but believe, of apprehension;--and yet, at such mcments; I turned

perversely from the spot, nor suffered myself to steal another look

at one, all of whose triumphs seemed made at my expense.

On one of these occasions we met--our eyes and hands, accidentally;

and, though I, myself, could not help starting back with a cold

chill at my heart, I yet fancied there was something monstrous

insulting in the evident recoil of her person from the contact with

mine, at the same moment. I was about to turn hurriedly away with

a slight bow of acknowledgment, when the touching tenderness of

her glance, so full of sweetness and sadness, made me shrink with

shame from such a rudeness. Besides, she was so pale, so thin,

and really looked so unwell, that my conscience, in spite of that

blind heart whose perversity would still have kept me to my first

intention, rebuked me, and drove me to my duty. I approached--I

spoke to her--and my words, though few, under the better impulses

of the moment, were gentle and solicitous, as they should have been.

My tones, too, were softened:--wilfully as I still felt, I could

not forbear the exercise of that better ministry of the affections

which was disposed to make amends for previous misconduct. I do not

know exactly what I said--I probably did nothing more than utter

the ordinary phrases of social compliment;--but everything was

obliterated from my mind in an instant, by the startling directness

of what was said by her. Looking at me with a degree of intentness

by which, alone, she was, perhaps, able to preserve her seeming

calmness, she replied by an inquiry as remote from what my observation

called for as possible, yet how applicable to me and my conduct!




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