why should you be ashamed of your love for the
noblest man who ever unconsciously became a woman's idol? I do not
much wonder at your feelings, because you have seen no one else in any
respect comparable to him, and it is difficult for you to realize the
disparity in your ages. Poor thing! It must be terrible, indeed, to
one who loves him as you do, to have no hope of possessing his
affection in return. But I suppose it can't be helped,--and one half
the world seem to pour out their love on the wrong persons, and find
misery where they should have only joy and peace. Thank God, all this
mischief is shut out of heaven! Dear, don't hide your face, as if you
had stolen half of my sheep; whereas my poor innocent sailor-boy has
unintentionally stolen my little girl's heart."

"Miss Jane, you are too good,--too kind. Do not help me to excuse
myself,--do not teach me to palliate my pitiable weakness. It is a
grievous, a shameful, a disgraceful thing, for a woman to allow
herself to love any man who gives her no evidence of affection, and
shows her beyond all doubt that he is utterly indifferent to her. This
is a sin against womanly pride and delicacy that demands sackcloth and
ashes, and penance and long years of humiliation and self-abasement;
and I tell you this is the one sin which my proud soul will never
pardon in my poor weak, despised heart."

"If you feel this so keenly, you will soon succeed in conquering and
casting out of your heart an affection, which, having nothing to feed
upon, will speedily exhaust itself. You are young, and your elastic
nature will rebound from the pressure that you now find so painful. My
dear, a few months or years will bring comparative oblivion of this
period of your life."

"No; they will engrave more deeply the consciousness that I have
missed my sole chance of earthly happiness, for Dr. Grey is the only
man I shall ever love,--is the only man who can lift me to his own
noble height of excellence. I know it is customary to laugh at a
girl's protestations of undying devotion, and that the theory of
feminine constancy is as entirely effete as the worship of the Cabiri,
or the belief in Blokula and its witches; but, unfortunately, the
world has not sneered it entirely out of existence, and I am destined
to furnish a mournful exemplification of its reality. Whether my
nature is unlike that of the majority of women, I shall not undertake
to decide; but this I know,--God gave me only so mu