u cannot soften your heart
towards him?"

"Soften my heart! Oh, if I could only harden it!"

"He would wait. If you would only bid him wait, he would be so happy
in waiting."

"Yes--till to-morrow morning. I know him. Hold out your little finger
to him, and he has your whole hand and arm in a moment."

"I want you to say that you will try to love him."

But Clara was in truth trying not to love him. She was ashamed of
herself because she did love the one man, when, but a few weeks
since, she had confessed that she loved another. She had mistaken
herself and her own feelings, not in reference to her cousin, but in
supposing that she could really have sympathised with such a man as
Captain Aylmer. It was necessary to her self-respect that she should
be punished because of that mistake. She could not save herself from
this condemnation,--she would not grant herself a respite--because,
by doing so, she would make another person happy. Had Captain Aylmer
never crossed her path, she would have given her whole heart to her
cousin. Nay; she had so given it,--had done so, although Captain
Aylmer had crossed her path and come in her way. But it was matter of
shame to her to find that this had been possible, and she could not
bring herself to confess her shame.

The conversation at last ended, as such conversations always do end,
without any positive decision. Mary wrote of course to her brother,
but Clara was not told of the contents of the letter. We, however,
may know them, and may understand their nature, without learning
above two lines of the letter. "If you can be content to wait awhile,
you will succeed," said Mary; "but when were you ever content to
wait for anything?" "If there is anything I hate, it is waiting,"
said Will, when he received the letter; nevertheless the letter made
him happy, and he went about his farm with a sanguine heart, as he
arranged matters for another absence. "Away long?" he said, in answer
to a question asked him by his head man; "how on earth can I say how
long I shall be away? You can go on well enough without me by this
time, I should think. You will have to learn, for there is no knowing
how often I may be away, or for how long."

When Mary said that the letter had been written, Clara again spoke
about going. "And where will you go?" said Mary.

"I will take a lodging in Taunton."

"He would only follow you there, and there would be more trouble.
That would be all. He must act as