ervour. Indifference, if I
felt it, would be the only just occasion of wonder.

The hour was, indeed, too late, and I hastened home. Stevens was waiting
my return with some anxiety. I apologized for my delay, and recounted to
him what had just passed. He listened with more than usual interest.
When I had finished,--

"Mervyn," said he, "you seem not be aware of your present situation.
From what you now tell me, and from what you have formerly told me, one
thing seems very plain to me."

"Pr'ythee, what is it?"

"Eliza Hadwin:--do you wish--could you bear--to see her the wife of
another?"

"Five years hence I will answer you. Then my answer may be, 'No; I wish
her only to be mine.' Till then, I wish her only to be my pupil, my
ward, my sister."

"But these are remote considerations; they are bars to marriage, but not
to love. Would it not molest and disquiet you to observe in her a
passion for another?"

"It would, but only on her own account; not on mine. At a suitable age
it is very likely I may love her, because it is likely, if she holds on
in her present career, she will then be worthy; but at present, though I
would die to insure her happiness, I have no wish to insure it by
marriage with her."

"Is there no other whom you love?"

"No. There is one worthier than all others; one whom I wish the woman
who shall be my wife to resemble in all things."

"And who is this model?"

"You know I can only mean Achsa Fielding."

"If you love her likeness, why not love herself?"

I felt my heart leap.--"What a thought is that! Love her I _do_ as I
love my God; as I love virtue. To love her in another sense would brand
me for a lunatic."

"To love her as a woman, then, appears to you an act of folly."

"In me it would be worse than folly. 'Twould be frenzy."

"And why?"

"Why? Really, my friend, you astonish me. Nay, you startle me--for a
question like that implies a doubt in you whether I have not actually
harboured the thought."

"No," said he, smiling, "presumptuous though you be, you have not,
to-be-sure, reached so high a pitch. But still, though I think you
innocent of so heinous an offence, there is no harm in asking why you
might not love her, and even seek her for a wife."

Achsa Fielding _my wife_! Good Heaven!--The very sound threw my soul
into unconquerable tumults. "Take care, my friend," continued I, in
beseeching accents, "you may do me more injury than you conceive, by
even starting suc