write to her herself,
using every encomium she could think of to make this sudden marriage, on
my part, seem like the result of reason and wise forethought.

"Such an estimable man! such an old neighbor! so domestic in his tastes!
and, oh! so wise to find out and make his own the slyest and most
bewildering little beauty that has come into New York this many a
season!" These were some of her words, and, though pleasing at the time,
they made me think deeply--much more deeply than I wished to, after I
went upstairs to my room.

"Estimable! an old neighbor! domestic in his tastes!" Had she said:
"Handsome! masterful in his air and spirit! a man to make a girl forget
the real end of life and think only of present pleasure!" I should not
have had such a fierce reaction. But estimable! Was he estimable? I
tried to cry out yes! I tried to keep down the memory of that moment
when, with a dozen passions suddenly let loose (one of them fear), he
strode by me and locked the door against all help, under an impetus he
had tried in vain to explain. Nothing would quiet the still, small voice
speaking in my breast, or give to the moment that unalloyed joy which
belongs to a young girl's betrothal. I was afraid. Why?

Mr. Allison never came in the evening, another of his peculiarities.
Other men did, but what were other men to me now? This night I pleaded
weariness (Mrs. Vandyke understood me), and remained in my room. I
wanted to study the face of my lover under the new conditions. Was he
in his old seat? Yes. And would he read, as usual, or study? No. He had
thoughts of his own to-night, engrossing enough to hold him enthralled
without the aid of his ordinary occupations; thoughts, thoughts of me,
thoughts which should have cleared his brow and made his face a study of
delight to me. But was it so? Alas! I had never seen it so troubled; lit
with gleams of hope or happiness by spells, but mostly sunk in depths of
profoundest contemplation, which gave to it a melancholy from which I
shrank, and not the melancholy one longs to comfort and allay. What was
on his mind? What was in his heart? Something he feared to have noted,
for suddenly he rose with a start, and, for the first time since my eyes
had sought that window, pulled down the shades and thus shut himself out
from my view altogether. Was it a rebuke to my insistent watchfulness?
or the confession of a reticent nature fearing to be surprised in its
moment of weakness? I ought