o her, was
impossible. To approach the subject of the canary's death afterwards,
was useless. If I only hinted in the gentlest way, and with the
strongest sympathy for the loss of the bird, at the distress and
astonishment she had caused me by the extremities to which she had
allowed her passion to hurry her, a burst of tears was sure to be her
only reply--just the reply, of all others, which was best calculated to
silence me. If I had been her husband in fact, as well as in name; if I
had been her father, her brother, or her friend, I should have let
her first emotions have their way, and then have expostulated with her
afterwards. But I was her lover still; and, to my eyes, Margaret's tears
made virtues even of Margaret's faults.
Such occurrences as these, happening but at rare intervals, formed
the only interruptions to the generally even and happy tenour of our
intercourse. Weeks and weeks glided away, and not a hasty or a hard word
passed between us. Neither, after one preliminary difference had been
adjusted, did any subsequent disagreement take place between Mr. Sherwin
and me. This last element in the domestic tranquillity of North Villa
was, however, less attributable to his forbearance, or to mine, than to
the private interference of Mr. Mannion.
For some days after my interview with the managing clerk, at his
own house, I had abstained from calling his offered services into
requisition. I was not conscious of any reason for this course of
conduct. All that had been said, all that had happened during the night
of the storm, had produced a powerful, though vague impression on me.
Strange as it may appear, I could not determine whether my brief but
extraordinary experience of my new friend had attracted me towards him,
or repelled me from him. I felt an unwillingness to lay myself under an
obligation to him, which was not the result of pride, or false delicacy,
or sullenness, or suspicion--it was an inexplicable unwillingness, that
sprang from the fear of encountering some heavy responsibility; but of
what nature I could not imagine. I delayed and held back, by instinct;
and, on his side, Mr. Mannion made no further advances. He maintained
the same manner, and continued the same habits, during his intercourse
with the family at North Villa, which I had observed as characterising
him before I took shelter from the storm, in his house. He never
referred again to the conversation of that evening, when we now
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