was about to make; "hast thou engaged thyself to Erskine?"
She faltered out, "Yes."
Mr. Lloyd made no reply; he rose and walked up and down the room, agitated, and apparently distressed. Jane was alarmed; she could not account for his emotion; she feared he had some ground for an ill opinion of Edward, that she was ignorant of. "You do not like Edward?" said she; "you think I have done wrong?"
The power of man is not limited in the moral as in the natural world. Habitual discipline had given Mr. Lloyd such dominion over his feelings, that he was able now to say to their stormy wave, 'thus far shalt thou come, and no farther.' By a strong and sudden effort he recovered himself, and turning to Jane, he took her hand with a benignant expression—"My dear Jane, thy own heart must answer that question. Dost thou remember a favourite stanza of thine?
"Nae treasures nor pleasures
Could make us happy lang;
The heart aye's the part aye
That makes us right or wrang."
Jane imagined that Mr. Lloyd felt a distrust of her motives. "Ah!" she replied, "the integrity of my heart will fail to make me happy, if I have fallen under your suspicion. If you knew the nobleness, the disinterestedness of Erskine's conduct, you would be more just to him, and to me."
