in my friend. I considered my youth, my
defective education, and my limited views. I had passed from my cottage
into the world. I had acquired, even in my transient sojourn among the
busy haunts of men, more knowledge than the lucubrations and employments
of all my previous years had conferred. Hence I might infer the
childlike immaturity of my understanding, and the rapid progress I was
still capable of making. Was this an age to form an irrevocable
contract; to choose the companion of my future life, the associate of my
schemes of intellectual and benevolent activity?

I had reason to contemn my own acquisitions; but were not those of Eliza
still more slender? Could I rely upon the permanence of her equanimity
and her docility to my instructions? What qualities might not time
unfold, and how little was I qualified to estimate the character of one
whom no vicissitude or hardship had approached before the death of her
father,--whose ignorance was, indeed, great, when it could justly be
said even to exceed my own!

Should I mix with the world, enroll myself in different classes of
society, be a witness to new scenes; might not my modes of judging
undergo essential variations? Might I not gain the knowledge of beings
whose virtue was the gift of experience and the growth of knowledge? who
joined to the modesty and charms of woman the benefits of education, the
maturity and steadfastness of age, and with whose character and
sentiments my own would be much more congenial than they could possibly
be with the extreme youth, rustic simplicity, and mental imperfections
of Eliza Hadwin?

To say truth, I was now conscious of a revolution in my mind. I can
scarcely assign its true cause. No tokens of it appeared during my late
retreat to Malverton. Subsequent incidents, perhaps, joined with the
influence of meditation, had generated new views. On my first visit to
the city, I had met with nothing but scenes of folly, depravity, and
cunning. No wonder that the images connected with the city were
disastrous and gloomy; but my second visit produced somewhat different
impressions. Maravegli, Estwick, Medlicote, and you, were beings who
inspired veneration and love. Your residence appeared to beautify and
consecrate this spot, and gave birth to an opinion that, if cities are
the chosen seats of misery and vice, they are likewise the soil of all
the laudable and strenuous productions of mind.

My curiosity and thirst of knowledge h