'To see you,' cried he, in the midst of those who could not be my well-wishers; to see your cousin. close by you, conversing and smiling, and feel all the horrible eligibilities and proprieties of the match! To consider it as the certain wish of every being who could hope to influence you! Even if your own feelings were reluctant or indifferent, to consider what powerful support would be his! Was it not enough to make the fool of me which I appeared? How could I look on without agony? Was not the very sight of the friend who sat behind you; was not the recollection of what had been, the knowledge of her influence, the indelible, immovable impression of what persuasion had once done-was it not all against me?'
'You should have distinguished,' replied Anne.
'You should not have suspected me now; the case so different, and my age so different. If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember it was to per- suasion excrted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty; but no duty could be called in aid here. In marrying a man indifferent to mc, all risk would have been incurred, and all duty violated.'
'Perhaps I ought to have reasoned thus,' he replied; but I could not. I could not derive benefit from the late knowledge I had acquired of your character. I could not bring it into play; it was overwhelmed, buried, lost in those earlier feelings which I had been smarting under year after year. I could think of you only as one who had yielded, who had
