ng myself for the sake of
protecting and shielding her. For there was no doubt that my presence in
the family was a restraint upon the passions which formerly vented
themselves so recklessly on her, and established a sort of order in
which she found more peace than she had ever known before.

For a long time in our intercourse I was in the habit of looking on
myself as the only party in danger. It did not occur to me that this
heart, so beautiful and so lonely, might, in the want of all natural and
appropriate objects of attachment, fasten itself on me unsolicited, from
the mere necessity of loving. She seemed to me so much too beautiful,
too perfect, to belong to a lot in life like mine, that I could not
suppose it possible this could occur without the most blameworthy
solicitation on my part; and it is the saddest and most affecting proof
to me how this poor child had been starved for sympathy and love, that
she should have repaid such cold services as mine with such an entire
devotion. At first her feelings were expressed openly toward me, with
the dutiful air of a good child. She placed flowers on my desk in the
morning, and made quaint little nosegays in the Spanish fashion, which
she gave me, and busied her leisure with various ingenious little
knick-knacks of fancy work, which she brought me. I treated them all as
the offerings of a child while with her, but I kept them sacredly in my
own room. To tell the truth, I have some of the poor little things now.

But after a while I could not help seeing how she loved me; and then I
felt as if I ought to go; but how could I? The pain to myself I could
have borne; but how could I leave her to all the misery of her bleak,
ungenial position? She, poor thing, was so unconscious of what I
knew,--for I was made clear-sighted by love. I tried the more strictly
to keep to the path I had marked out for myself, but I fear I did not
always do it; in fact, many things seemed to conspire to throw us
together. The sisters, who were sometimes invited out to visit on
neighboring estates, were glad enough to dispense with the presence and
attractions of Dolores, and so she was frequently left at home to study
with me in their absence. As to Don Jose, although he always treated me
with civility, yet he had such an ingrained and deep-rooted idea of his
own superiority of position, that I suppose he would as soon have
imagined the possibility of his daughter's falling in love with one of