g akin to that in him. He
wanted his treasure, and she could only tell him that he might never
have it. "Think of it all, and ask yourself whether it is in your
heart to refuse to bid me be happy." It was in her heart to do it.
Though it might break her heart she would do it. It was the one thing
to do which was her paramount duty. "You have told me that you love
me." Truly she had told him so, and certainly she would never recall
her words. If he ever thought of her in future years when she should
long have been at her rest,--and she thought that now and again he
would think of her, even when that noble bride should be sitting at
his table,--he should always remember that she had given him her
whole heart. He had bade her write to him at Trafford. She would obey
him at once in that; but she would tell him that she could not obey
him in aught else. "Tell me that it shall be so," he had said to her
with his sweet, imperious, manly words. There had been something of
command about him always, which had helped to make him so perfect in
her eyes. "You do not understand," he said, "how absolutely my heart
is set upon you." Did he understand, she wondered, how absolutely
her heart had been set upon him? "No pleasures are pleasant to me,
no employment useful, unless I can make them so by thinking of your
love!" It was right that he as a man,--and such a man,--should have
pleasures and employments, and it was sweet to her to be told that
they could be gilded by the remembrance of her smiles. But for
her, from the moment in which she had known him, there could be no
pleasure but to think of him, no serious employment but to resolve
how best she might do her duty to him.

It was not till the next morning that she took up her pen to begin
her all-important letter. Though her resolution had been so firmly
made, yet there had been much need for thinking before she could sit
down to form the sentences. For a while she had told herself that it
would be well first to consult her father; but before her father had
returned to her she had remembered that nothing which he could say
would induce her in the least to alter her purpose. His wishes had
been made known to her; but he had failed altogether to understand
the nature of the duty she had imposed upon herself. Thus she let
that day pass by, although she knew that the writing of the letter
would be an affair of much time to her. She could not take her sheet
of paper, and scribble off w