en, a glance exchanged, they may be in such a heaven of bliss that
they will smile at their own ignorance in being so well pleased to-day.
Or--but I pray they may escape the other chance. Neither of them knows
anything of that misery yet, I am confident. They both look too young,
too open, too free to have really suffered.--I wonder whether it is
foolish to fancy already that one of them may be settled here. It can
hardly be foolish, when the thought occurs so naturally: and these great
affairs of life lie distinctly under the eye of such as are themselves
cut off from them. I am out of the game, and why should not I look upon
its chances? I am quite alone; and why should I not watch for others?
Every situation has its privileges and its obligations.--What is it to
be alone, and to be let alone, as I am? It is to be put into a post of
observation on others: but the knowledge so gained is anything but a
good if it stops at mere knowledge,--if it does not make me feel and
act. Women who have what I am not to have, a home, an intimate, a
perpetual call out of themselves, may go on more safely, perhaps,
without any thought for themselves, than I with all my best
consideration: but I, with the blessing of a peremptory vocation, which
is to stand me instead of sympathy, ties and spontaneous action,--I may
find out that it is my proper business to keep an intent eye upon the
possible events of other people's lives, that I may use slight occasions
of action which might otherwise pass me by. If one were thoroughly wise
and good, this would be a sort of divine lot. Without being at all
wiser or better than others,--being even as weak in judgment and in
faith as I am,--something may be made of it. Without daring to meddle,
one may stand clear-sighted, ready to help.--How the children are flying
over the meadow towards that gentleman who is fastening his horse to the
gate! Mr Hope, no doubt. He is the oldest cowslip gatherer of them
all, I fancy. If one could overhear the talk in every house along the
village, I dare say some of it is about Mr Hope winning one of these
young ladies. If so, it is only what I am thinking about myself. Every
one wishes to see Mr Hope married,--every one, even to the servants
here, who are always disputing whether he will not have Miss Sophia, or
whether Miss Sophia is not to make a grander match. Sophia will not do
for him; but it is very possible that one of these girls may. And the
ot