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DUTY AND INCLINATION.
85



CHAPTER VII.



"The blush of meekness, yet with virtue's pride,
Mild with each grace, with reason's strength to soar,
Thy heart is woman's, but thy mind is more."


Upon Rosilia first awaking on the morning after she had given Douglas his final dismission, his image forcibly rushed upon her fancy, and she beheld him, as presented to her mental vision, reproaching her for her unrelenting cruelty, her perseverance in dooming him to despair. Her heart, so sensibly alive to every feeling of compassion, was then most deeply affected; every expression he had uttered sounded in her ear, and probed the inmost recesses of her soul. Her agony for a time found relief in tears. Though overwhelmed with natural weakness, she was struggling to rise superior to it. It was then she perceived the great ascendency he had gained over her affections; she had been unwilling to allow it before, but any longer to disguise it from herself was impossible. Her heart had insensibly flown to one whom neither her judgment nor her sense of virtue could approve,