steem.

Ah, William! even with less anxiety your beating, ambitious heart panted
for the admiration of an attentive auditory, when you first ventured to
harangue in public! With far less hope and fear (great as yours were)
did you first address a crowded court, and thirst for its approbation on
your efforts, than Agnes sighed for your approbation when she took a pen
and awkwardly scrawled over a sheet of paper. Near twenty times she
began, but to a gentleman--and one she loved like William--what could she
dare to say? Yet she had enough to tell, if shame had not interposed, or
if remaining confidence in his affection had but encouraged her.

Overwhelmed by the first, and deprived of the last, her hand shook, her
head drooped, and she dared not communicate what she knew must inevitably
render her letter unpleasing, and still more depreciate her in his
regard, as the occasion of encumbrance, and of injury to his moral
reputation.

Her free, her liberal, her venturous spirit subdued, intimidated by the
force of affection, she only wrote--

"SIR,--I am sorry you have so much to do, and should be ashamed if you
put it off to write to me. I have not been at all well this winter. I
never before passed such a one in all my life, and I hope you will
never know such a one yourself in regard to not being happy. I should
be sorry if you did--think I would rather go through it again myself
than you should. I long for the summer, the fields are so green, and
everything so pleasant at that time of the year. I always do long for
the summer, but I think never so much in my life as for this that is
coming; though sometimes I wish that last summer had never come.
Perhaps you wish so too; and that this summer would not come either.

"Hope you will excuse all faults, as I never learnt but one month.

"Your obedient humble servant,
"A. P."

CHAPTER XXIV.

Summer arrived, and lords and ladies, who had partaken of all the
dissipation of the town, whom opera-houses, gaming-houses, and various
other houses had detained whole nights from their peaceful home, were now
poured forth from the metropolis, to imbibe the wholesome air of the
farmer and peasant, and disseminate, in return, moral and religious
principles.

Among the rest, Lord and Lady Bendham, strenuous opposers of vice in the
poor, and gentle supporters of it in the rich, never played at cards, or
had concerts on a Sunday