happy."

As my uncle turned his head, he did so too, and coloured when
he saw me. I sat down on the sofa by the chimney; and every
corner of that old library seemed to me in some way different
from usual. I did not wish Edward to speak to me; on the
contrary, it was enough to feel that he was there; that at any
moment, by looking up, I could meet his eyes, and to know
instinctively when his were fixed on mine. When I fancied
myself in love with Henry Lovell, it was chiefly while he was
talking to me, in the height of discussion, in the excitement
of conversation. When I had not seen him for some hours, I was
impatient to see him, and speak to him again, in order to
prove to myself that I liked him; but with Edward it was not
so. Alas! would it not have been for me the most dreadful
misfortune to have loved him? Was not there, as Henry had
said, a gulf between us, which could never be filled up? Would
he not have shrunk from my love as from a poisonous thing, and
have recoiled from the touch of my hand as from a serpent's
sting?

Tears gathered in my eyes at this thought; I felt them tremble
on my eye-lashes, and brushed them hastily aside as I walked
into the dining-room with my uncle. Edward talked of his
travels, of various persons whom he had made acquaintance
with, in France and in Italy, of English politics, and the
approaching session. There was nothing in his conversation
peculiarly adapted to my taste; and yet I listened to each
word that fell from his lips with an interest which my own
feelings stimulated to the highest pitch.

In the evening he asked me to sing to him, and as he leant his
head on his hand, and sat in silence by my side, listening to
song after song which he had known and liked in former days, I
felt my heart grow fuller, till at last my voice failed, and
in its place a choking sob rose in my throat. He raised his
head abruptly, and looked at me sternly. "It is only that I am
a little nervous," I said; "I have taken a long ride, and
being tired--"

"Oh, pray make no explanations," he replied; "excuses are
perfectly unnecessary;" and he suddenly left the pianoforte.

He spoke to me no more that evening; but the next day he
treated me again as he had done at first, and even seemed in
some ways more satisfied with me than he had ever been before.

I have never yet described Edward, and I do not think I could
describe him. He was always unlike anybody else, and yet it
would have been di