g to the idea in which they accompanied
each other--she had so completely made his defects her own, that a kind
of living whole resulted from it, which did not move indeed according to
exact rule, but the effect of which was in the highest degree pleasant
and delightful. The composer himself would have been pleased to hear his
work disfigured in a manner so charming.

Charlotte and the Captain watched this strange unexpected occurrence in
silence, with the kind of feeling with which we often observe the
actions of children--unable exactly to approve of them, from the serious
consequences which may follow, and yet without being able to find fault,
perhaps with a kind of envy. For, indeed, the regard of these two for
one another was growing also, as well as that of the others--and it was
perhaps only the more perilous because they were both stronger, more
certain of themselves, and better able to restrain themselves.

The Captain had already begun to feel that a habit which he could not
resist was threatening to bind him to Charlotte. He forced himself to
stay away at the hour when she commonly used to be at the works; by
getting up very early in the morning he contrived to finish there
whatever he had to do, and went back to the castle to his work in his
own room. The first day or two Charlotte thought it was an accident--she
looked for him in every place where she thought he could possibly be.
Then she thought she understood him--and admired him all the more.

Avoiding, as the Captain now did, being alone with Charlotte, the more
industriously did he labor to hurry forward the preparations for keeping
her rapidly-approaching birthday with all splendor. While he was
bringing up the new road from below behind the village, he made the men,
under pretence that he wanted stones, begin working at the top as well,
and work down, to meet the others; and he had calculated his
arrangements so that the two should exactly meet on the eve of the day.
The excavations for the new house were already done; the rock was blown
away with gunpowder; and a fair foundation-stone had been hewn, with a
hollow chamber, and a flat slab adjusted to cover it.

This outward activity, these little mysterious purposes of friendship,
prompted by feelings which more or less they were obliged to repress,
rather prevented the little party when together from being as lively as
usual. Edward, who felt that there was a sort of void, one evening
called upo