think I could like him. I should enjoy nothing so much as lifting the veil from his eyes."
"The sooner you do it the better then."
"No:—I tell you, I like to amuse myself with him. Besides, he doesn't really think I like him. I take good care of that; you don't know how cleverly I manage. He may presume to think he can induce me to like him, for which I shall punish him as he deserves."
"Well, mind you don't give too much reason for such presumption—that's all," replied I.
But all my exhortations were in vain: they only made her somewhat more solicitous to disguise her wishes and her thoughts from me. She talked no more to me about the rector; but I could see that her mind, if not her heart, was fixed upon him still, and that she was intent upon obtaining another interview; for though, in compliance with her mother's request, I was now constituted the companion of her rambles for a time, she still persisted in wandering in the fields and lanes that lay in the nearest proximity to the road; and, whether she talked to me, or read the book she carried in her hand, she kept continually pausing to look round her, or gaze up the road to
