ed their usual interest, were ineffectual in reducing the ruffled
mind to order. I rose and paced my room, but I could not escape from
agitating thought. I sought the minister in his study, and hoped to
bring myself to calm and reason by dwelling seriously on the business of
the day--with him, the father of the lady, and _my master_. He was not
there. He had left the parsonage with Doctor Mayhew an hour before. I
walked into the open air restless and unhappy, relying on the freshness
and repose of night to be subdued and comforted. It was a night to
soften anger--to conquer envy--to destroy revenge--beautiful and bright.
The hills were bathed in liquid silvery light, and on their heights, and
in the vale, on all around, lay passion slumbering. What could I find on
such a night, but favour and incitement, support and confirmation,
flattery and delusion? Every object ministered to the imagination, and
love had given that wings. I trembled as I pursued my road, and fuel
found its unobstructed way rapidly to the flame within. Self-absorbed, I
wandered on. I did not choose my path. I believed I did not, and I
stopped at length--before the house that held her. I gazed upon it with
reverence and love. One room was lighted up. Shadows flitted across the
curtained window, and my heart throbbed sensibly when, amongst them, I
imagined I could trace her form. I was borne down by a conviction of
wrong and culpability, but I could not move, or for a moment draw away
my look. It was a strange assurance that I felt--but I did feel it,
strongly and emphatically--that I should see her palpably before I left
the place. I waited for that sight in certain expectation, and it came.
A light was carried from the room. Diminished illumination there, and
sudden brightness against a previously darkened casement, made this
evident. The light ascended--another casement higher than the last was,
in its turn, illumined, and it betrayed her figure. She approached the
window, and, for an instant--oh how brief!--looked into the heavenly
night. My poor heart sickened with delight, and I strained my eyes long
after all was blank and dark again.

Daylight, and the employments of day, if they did not remove, weakened
the turbulence of the preceding night. The more I found my passion
acquiring mastery, with greater vigour I renewed my work, and with more
determination I pursued the objects that were most likely to fight and
overcome it. I laboured with the yo