My sleep that night was anything but satisfactory. I had feverish

dreams, unquiet slumbers, and woke at morning with an excruciating

headache. I was in no mood for an explanation such as my promise

necessarily implied, but I prepared my toilet with particular

care--spent two hours at my office in a vain endeavor to divert

myself, by a resort to business, from the conflicting and annoying

sensations which afflicted me, and then proceeded to the dwelling

of my uncle.

I was fortunate in seeing Julia without the presence of her mother.

That good lady had become too fashionable to suffer herself to

be seen at so early an hour. Her vanity, in this respect, baffled

her vigilance, for she had her own apprehensions on the score of

my influence upon her daughter. Julia was scarcely so composed in

the morning as she had appeared on the preceding night. I was now

fully conscious of a flutter in her manner, a flush upon her face,

an ill-suppressed apprehension in her eyes, which betokened strong

emotions actively at work. But my own agitation did not suffer

me to know the full extent of hers. For the first time, on her

appearance, did I ask myself the question--"For what did I seek

this interview?" What had I to say--what near? How explain my

conduct--my coldness? On what imaginary and unsubstantial premises

base the neglect in my deportment, amounting to rudeness, of which

she had sufficient reason and a just right to complain? When I

came to review my causes of vexation, how trivial did they seem. The

reserve which had irritated me, on her part, now that I analyzed its

sources, seemed a very natural reserve, such as was only maidenly

and becoming. I now recollected that she was no longer a child--no

longer the lively little fairy whom I could dandle on my knee and

fling upon my shoulder, without a scruple or complaint. I stood like

a trembling culprit in her presence. I was eloquent only through

the force of a stricken conscience.

"Julia!" I exclaimed when we met, "I have come to make atonement.

I feel how rude I have been, but that was only because I was very

wretched."

"Wretched, Edward!" she exclaimed with some surprise. "What should

make you wretched?"

"You--you have made me wretched."

"Me!" Her surprise naturally increased "Yes, you, dear Julia, and you only."

I took her hand in mine. Mine was burning--hers was colder than the

icicles. Need I say more to those who comprehend the mysteries of

the youthful heart. Need I say that the tongue once loosed, and

the declaration of the soul must follow in a rush from the lips.

I told her how much I loved her;--how unhappy it made me to think

that others might bear away the prize; that, in this way, my rudeness

arose from my wretchedness, and my wretchedness only from my love.

I did not speak in vain. She confessed an equal feeling, and we

were suffered a brief hour of unmitigated happiness together.




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