knowledge of which might be productive of a remedy for
all the difficulty."

"Never--never. The knowledge of it would be destructive of all beside.
It would be fatal--seek not, therefore, to know it--it would profit you
nothing, and me it would crush for ever to the earth. Hear me, Ralph--my
brother!--hear me. Hitherto you have known me--I am proud to think--as a
strong-minded woman, heedless of all things in her desire for the
good--for the right. In a moment of peril to you or to another, I would
be the same woman. But the strength which supports through the trial,
subsides when it is over. The ship that battles with the storms and the
seas, with something like a kindred buoyancy, goes down with the calm
that follows their violence. It is so with me. I could do much--much
more than woman generally--in the day of trial, but I am the weakest of
my sex when it is over. Would you have the secret of these weaknesses in
your possession, when you must know that the very consciousness, that it
is beyond my own control, must be fatal to that pride of sex which,
perhaps, only sustains me now? Ask me not further, Ralph, on this
subject. I can tell you nothing; I _will_ tell you nothing; and to press
me farther must only be to estrange me the more. It is sufficient that I
call you brother--that I pledge myself to love you as a sister--as
sister never loved brother before. This is as much as I can do, Ralph
Colleton--is it not enough?"

The youth tried numberless arguments and entreaties, but in vain to
shake her purpose; and the sorrowful expression of his voice and manner,
not less than of his language, sufficiently assured her of the deep
mortification which he felt upon her denial. She soothed his spirit with
a gentleness peculiarly her own, and, as if she had satisfied herself
that she had done enough for the delicacy of her scruples in one leading
consideration, she took care that her whole manner should be that of the
most confiding and sisterly regard. She even endeavored to be cheerful,
seeing that her companion, with her unlooked-for denial, had lost all
his elasticity; but without doing much to efface from his countenance
the traces of dissatisfaction.

"And what are your plans, Lucy? Let me know them, at least. Let mo see
how far they are likely to be grateful to your character, and to make
you happy."

"Happy! happy!" and she uttered but the two words, with a brief interval
between them, while her voice trembled,