Page:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1st edition), Volume 3 (Agnes Grey).djvu/318

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310
AGNES GREY.

impressively; and at that moment, there were the Greens and Miss Matilda Murray just before, and other people passing by, and he was obliged to stand close beside you, and to speak very low, unless he wished everybody to hear what he said, which—though it was nothing at all particular—of course, he would rather not."

"But then, above all, that emphatic, yet gentle pressure of the hand, which seemed to say, "Trust me," and many other things besides—too delightful, almost too flattering, to be repeated, even to one's self.

"Egregious folly—too absurd to require contradiction. . .mere inventions of the imagination; which you ought to be ashamed of. If you would but consider your own unattractive exterior, your unamiable reserve, your foolish diffidence, which must make you appear cold, dull, awkward, and perhaps ill-tempered too;. . .if you had but rightly considered these from the beginning, you would never have harboured such presumptuous thoughts; and now that you have been so foolish, pray repent and amend, and let us have no more of it!

I cannot say that I implicitly obeyed my own injunctions; but such reasoning as this