hopeful enthusiasm. She knew nothing of the irritability inseparable from an imaginative temperament; feeling every thing with the keenest susceptibility, and exaggerating every thing. The excitement of even those few words was too much, he sank back, fainting, on his pillow. It soon, however, passed away, and he roused again.
"Lavinia!" exclaimed he, hastily, "there are some people sent into the world to be miserable; and miserably do they fulfil their fate. If you see one eager, hopeful, and believing, who holds the suffering of his kind his noblest reward—over whom even the words of those whom he despises have influence—be assured that you see one predestined to the most utter wretchedness."
"I am sure," returned Lavinia, not knowing very well what to say, "it is never worth while caring much about other people."
"How wretched," continued Walter, "has my whole life been! I look back upon my sad and unloved childhood, when I felt the unkind and cold word with a sorrow beyond my years.
