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She hesitated: heightened blushes dyed her cheeks; and she visibly struggled to restrain herself from bursting into tears.
Touched, delighted, yet affrighted, Harleigh tenderly demanded, "O, why resist the generous impulse, that would plead for some little frankness, in favour of one who unreservedly devotes to you his whole existence?"
Suddenly now, as if self-alarmed, checking her sensibility, she gravely cried, "What would it avail that I should enter into any particulars of my situation, when what has so recently passed, makes all that has preceded immaterial? You have heard my promise to Miss Joddrel,—you see by this letter how direfully she meditates to watch its performance;—"
"And can you suffer the wild flights of a revolutionary enthusiast, impelled by every extravagant new system of the moment;—however you may pity her feelings, respect her purity, and make
