CHAPTER XII.
"Unequal task! a passion to resign,
For hearts so touch'd, so pierced, so lost as mine."
Pope.
However unfortunately situated as was Philimore in respect to his family circumstances prohibiting him from making an open declaration of his sentiments, yet, unable to resist the stronger passions, or of practising that self-control he had formerly, upon less trying occasions, exerted,—in engaging the daughter of his friend to hold clandestine intercourse with him, and in leading her into the unjustifiable conduct of withholding her confidence from the best of parents, Philimore cast an irretrievable stain over his hitherto unblemished character!—and so effectually did he succeed in blinding the judgment of General and Mrs. De Brooke, that they harboured not the slightest suspicion of any other sentiment prevailing in him for either Oriana or Rosilia than that which old acquaintance authorized.
