me and its
associations--pressed too soon and heavily upon her to permit her much
longer to entertain or encourage the dream of that glad fancy in which
she originally set out.

The sphere to which she was transferred, it was soon evident, was
neither grateful to the heart nor suited to the mind whose education had
been such as hers; and the spirit of the young maiden, at all times
given rather to a dreamy melancholy than to any very animated impulses,
put on, in its new abiding-place, a garb of increased severity, which at
certain moments indicated more of deep and settled misanthropy than any
mere constitutionality of habit.

Munro was not at all times rude of speech and manner; and, when he
pleased, knew well how so to direct himself as to sooth such a
disposition. He saw, and in a little while well understood, the temper
of his niece; and, with a consideration under all circumstances rather
creditable, he would most usually defer, with a ready accommodation of
his own, to her peculiarities. He was pleased and proud of her
accomplishments; and from being thus proud, so far as such an emotion
could consistently comport with a life and a licentiousness such as his,
he had learned, in reality, to love the object who could thus awaken a
sentiment so much beyond those inculcated by all his other habits. To
her he exhibited none of the harsh manner which marked his intercourse
with all other persons; and in his heart sincerely regretted, and sought
to avoid the necessity which, as we have elsewhere seen, had made him
pledge her hand to Rivers--a disposition of it which he knew was no less
galling and painful to her than it was irksome yet unavoidable to
himself.

Unhappily, however, for these sentiments, he was too much under the
control and at the mercy of his colleague to resist or refuse his
application for her person; and though for a long time baffling, under
various pretences, the pursuit of that ferocious ruffian, he felt that
the time was at hand, unless some providential interference willed it
otherwise, when the sacrifice would be insisted on and must be made; or
probably her safety, as well as his own, might necessarily be
compromised. He knew too well the character of Rivers, and was too much
in his power, to risk much in opposition to his will and desires: and,
as we have already heard him declare, from having been at one time, and
in some respects, the tutor, he had now become, from the operation of
circu