earnestly seek to shun--all sentiments
'chat yet turned with unholy yearning towards the betrothed of his
brother);--gradually, I say, and slowly, came those progressive and
delicious epochs which mark a revolution in the affections:--unspeakable
gratitude, brotherly tenderness, the united strength of compassion
and respect that he had felt for Fanny seemed, as he gained health, to
mellow into feelings yet more exquisite and deep. He could no longer
delude himself with a vain and imperious belief that it was a defective
mind that his heart protected; he began again to be sensible to the rare
beauty of that tender face--more lovely, perhaps, for the paleness that
had replaced its bloom. The fancy that he had so imperiously checked
before--before he saw Camilla, returned to him, and neither pride nor
honour had now the right to chase the soft wings away. One evening,
fancying himself alone, he fell into a profound reverie; he awoke with
a start, and the exclamation, "was it true love that I ever felt for
Camilla, or a passion, a frenzy, a delusion?"

His exclamation was answered by a sound that seemed both of joy and
grief. He looked up, and saw Fanny before him; the light of the moon,
just risen, fell full on her form, but her hands were clasped before her
face; he heard her sob.

"Fanny, dear Fanny!" he cried, and sought to throw himself from the sofa
to her feet. But she drew herself away, and fled from the chamber silent
as a dream.

Philip rose, and, for the first time since his illness, walked, but with
feeble steps, to and fro the room. With what different emotions from
those in which last, in fierce and intolerable agony, he had paced that
narrow boundary! Returning health crept through his veins--a serene,
a kindly, a celestial joy circumfused his heart. Had the time yet come
when the old Florimel had melted into snow; when the new and the true
one, with its warm life, its tender beauty, its maiden wealth of love,
had risen before his hopes? He paused before the window; the spot within
seemed so confined, the night without so calm and lovely, that he forgot
his still-clinging malady, and unclosed the casement: the air came soft
and fresh upon his temples, and the church-tower and spire, for the
first time, did not seem to him to rise in gloom against the heavens.
Even the gravestone of Catherine, half in moonlight, half in shadow,
appeared to him to wear a smile. His mother's memory was become linked
with the