ing such a provision for my happiness, had generously
left my choice so free. But while my conscience seemed to reproach me as
if I had not deserved such tenderness, I rejoiced that my memory had no
specific charge to bring against it.

"For all these reasons," continued Mr. Stanley, "we mutually agreed to
bury our wishes in our own bosoms; to commit the event to Him by whom
all events are governed; never to name you to each other but in a
general way; to excite no fictitious liking, to elicit no artificial
passion, and to kindle neither impatience, curiosity, nor interest.
Nothing more than a friendly family regard was ever manifested, and the
names of Charles and Lucilla were never mentioned together.

"In this you have found your advantage. Had my daughter been accustomed
to hear you spoken of with any particularity; had she been conscious
that any important consequences might have attached to your visit, you
would have lost the pleasure of seeing her in her native simplicity of
character. Undesigning and artless I trust she would have been under any
circumstances, but to have been unreserved and open would have been
scarcely possible; nor might you, my dear Charles, with your strong
sense of filial piety, have been able exactly to discriminate how much
of your attachment was choice, how much was duty. The awkwardness of
restraint would have diminished the pleasure of intercourse to both.

"Knowing that the childish brother and sister sort of intimacy was not
the most promising mode for the development of your mutual sentiments,
we agreed that you should not meet till within a year or two of the
period when it would be proper that the union, if ever, might take
place.

"We were neither of us of an age or character to indulge very romantic
ideas of the doctrine of sympathies. Still we saw no reason for
excluding such a possibility. If we succeeded, we knew that we were
training two beings in a conformity of Christian principles, which, if
they did not at once attract affection, would not fail to insure it,
should inferior motives first influence your mutual liking. And if it
failed, we should each have educated a Christian, who would be likely to
carry piety and virtue into two other families. Much good would attend
our success, and no possible evil could attend our failure.

"I could show you, I believe, near a hundred letters on each side, of
which you were the unconscious subject. Your father, in his last
illn