; but then ambition,--let me speak
truth to you,--avarice, the offspring of ambition, leads you astray,
and contaminates the source of your first feelings.

_P. Coun._ (looks aside?) It is so! (after a pause?) Love will buoy me
up.

_Soph._ I shall crave little for myself; but in a just cause I shall at
all times insist upon having every thing entire. I shall not relent;
the man of my heart must act in full; his actions and motives must
appear as clear before the eye of the world as they do in the eye of
heaven.--Now the question is, will you, on these conditions, give me
your hand? Answer me?

_P. Coun._ (drops at his feet.) Sophia!

_Soph._ Rise! I expect no answer from love, but from your conviction.
Try your own self. The answer, which you are to give me now, is more
than that which you are to give at the foot of the altar; there we are
to exchange vows, and all will be settled; but here,--by ourselves,--no
witnesses but ourselves,--here, where nothing influences us but the
sentiment of future happiness or sorrow, which we create to ourselves,
and our eternal responsibility, which, at every motion of the pulse,
admonishes us with increased force:--to speak truth,--here we are to
unite our hearts for ever,--or separate. Once more then I repeat, on
different conditions I will not accept your hand; am I your choice on
these conditions!

_P. Coun._ Yes, yes, yes! Do not you read in my eyes that I understand
you, that I look up to you as the source of future bliss; that I repent
the past; that with candour and faith, from the bottom of my heart, in
this delightful solemn moment, I crave your hand, and feel myself quite
happy.

_Soph._ Well my friend, my dear, my beloved friend! I give credit to
all you say, and feel unspeakably happy; even your failings lie on the
road to rare perfections, and I vow to heaven that I hope those
failings will soon vanish.

_P. Coun._ You open to me the prospect of paridisic futurity. I shall
be active in the promoting the benefit of my country, and rise superior
to dirty, narrow, selfish views! recompensed by your approbation, your
joys, and sometimes by your tears. Your gentle hand shall reach me the
petitions of the wretched, the widow, and the orphan,--and my abilities
shall be called forth in their behalf. O Sophia! our wedding day shall
long be remembered by the cottagers; every face shall beam with smiles.

_Soph._ May it be so! may we, hand in hand, conduct our vows pure t