there is no guilt. But how noble is such power of
self-restraint! Though the principle of society may be to cultivate our
pride to excess, what fortitude grows out of it! There are no bounds to
the horror, disgust, and astonishment expressed when a woman owns her
love to its object unasked--even urges it upon him; but I acknowledge my
surprise to be the other way--that the cases are so rare. Yet, fancying
the case one's own--"

"Oh, dreadful!" cried Margaret.

"No woman can endure the bare thought of the case being her own; and
this proves the strong natural and educational restraint under which we
all lie: but I must think that the frequent and patient endurance proves
a strength of soul, a vigour of moral power, which ought to console and
animate us in the depth of our abasement, if we could but recall it then
when we want support and solace most."

"It can be little estimated--little understood," said Margaret, "or it
would not be sported with as it is."

"Do not let us speak of that, Margaret. You talk of my philosophy
sometimes; I own that that part of the subject is too much for any
philosophy I have."

"I see nothing philosophical," said Margaret, "in making light of the
deepest cruelty and treachery which is transacted under the sun. A man
who trifles with such affections, and abuses such moral power, and calls
his cruelty flirtation--"

"Is such an one as we will not speak of now. Well! it cannot be but
that good--moral and intellectual good--must issue from such exercise
and discipline as this; and such good does issue often, perhaps
generally. There are sad tales sung and told everywhere of brains
crazed, and graves dug by hopeless love: and I fear that many more sink
down into disease and death from this cause, than are at all suspected
to be its victims: but not a few find themselves lifted up from their
abyss, and set free from their bondage of pride and humiliation. They
marry their loves and stand amazed at their own bliss, and are truly the
happiest people upon earth, and in the broad road to be the wisest. In
my belief, the happiest are ever so."

"Bless you for that, for Hester's sake! And what of those who are not
thus released?"

"They get out of the abyss too; but they have to struggle out alone.
Their condition must depend much on what they were before the conflict
befell them. Some are soured, and live restlessly. Some are weak, and
come out worldly, and sacrifice themselve