g of
inclination. I believe that, during this interval, each furnished to the
other the principal topic of solitary and daily contemplation. Absence
bestows a refined and aerial delicacy upon affection, which it with
difficulty acquires in any other way. It seems to resemble the
communication of spirits, without the medium, or the impediment, of
this earthly frame.

When we met again, we met with new pleasure, and, I may add, with a more
decisive preference for each other. It was however three weeks longer,
before the sentiment which trembled upon the tongue, burst from the lips
of either. There was, as I have already said, no period of throes and
resolute explanation attendant on the tale. It was friendship melting
into love. Previously to our mutual declaration, each felt half-assured,
yet each felt a certain trembling anxiety to have assurance complete.

Mary rested her head upon the shoulder of her lover, hoping to find a
heart with which she might safely treasure her world of affection;
fearing to commit a mistake, yet, in spite of her melancholy
experience, fraught with that generous confidence, which, in a great
soul, is never extinguished. I had never loved till now; or, at least,
had never nourished a passion to the same growth, or met with an object
so consummately worthy.

We did not marry. It is difficult to recommend any thing to
indiscriminate adoption, contrary to the established rules and
prejudices of mankind; but certainly nothing can be so ridiculous upon
the face of it, or so contrary to the genuine march of sentiment, as to
require the overflowing of the soul to wait upon a ceremony, and that
which, wherever delicacy and imagination exist, is of all things most
sacredly private, to blow a trumpet before it, and to record the moment
when it has arrived at its climax.

There were however other reasons why we did not immediately marry. Mary
felt an entire conviction of the propriety of her conduct. It would be
absurd to suppose that, with a heart withered by desertion, she was not
right to give way to the emotions of kindness which our intimacy
produced, and to seek for that support in friendship and affection,
which could alone give pleasure to her heart, and peace to her
meditations. It was only about six months since she had resolutely
banished every thought of Mr. Imlay; but it was at least eighteen that
he ought to have been banished, and would have been banished, had it not
been for her scru