Part 7 (1/2)

'Is this just--is it kind? Is it, indeed, _my welfare_ you seek, while you can thus add to the vexations and embarrassment, which were before sufficiently oppressive? I would preserve you from an act of precipitation and imprudence;--in return, you load me with unmerited reproaches But it is time to put an end to a conversation, that can answer little other purpose than vain recrimination'

He was about to speak--'Say noive you pain--Allow me to retire, and be assured of ht, as if advancing towards us, favoured my retreat I quitted the place with precipitation, and retired tomyself, to calm the perturbation of my heart

CHAPTER XVIII

In a few days I renewedsympathy united us, and we became almost inseparable Every day I discovered in this admirable woman a new and indissoluble tie, that boundafforded an inexhaustible fund of instruction and entertainment; and her affectionate heart spread a charm over her ether; but, hatever subjects these conversations commenced, soiuret, for the absence of Augustus There was a portrait of him (drawn by a celebrated artist, which he had lately sent fro up in the library I accustoaze on this resemblance of a man, in whose character I felt so lively an interest, till, I fancied, I read in the features all the qualities iinal by a tender and partial parent

Cut off from the society ofaffections ofconscious of it, rateful love for Mrs Harley had, already, by a transition easy to be traced by a philosophic mind, transferred itself to her son He was the St Preux, the E reveries I now spent al to Morton Park late in the evening, and quitting it early in the ether

Six months thus passed away in tranquillity, with but little variation

Mr Montague, during this period, had several tiain abruptly: his manners became sullen, and even, at ti hi a spirit, that appeared everytobeen prevailed on by Mr Morton and his daughters to accompany them on a distant visit, where business of Mr Morton's detained us for some days) I ran into the library, as usual, and threw myself into the arms of Mrs Harley, that opened spontaneously to receive me

'Ah! you little truant,' said she, in a voice of kindness, 'where have you been so long? My son has visited h this part of the country, in his way to the seat of a friend

He staid with es to Morton Park, but you were floay, it seeustus,' continued she, without observing the emotions she excited, 'had scarcely quitted the house an hour when you arrived'

I made no reply; an unaccountable sensation seized, and oppressed,on the sopha, I burst into a convulsive flood of tears

My friend was struck: all the indiscretion of her conduct (as she has since told ing her own maternal sensations, she had, perhaps, done me an irreparable injury, and she shuddered at the probable consequences It was some moments before either of us recovered;--our conversation was that evening, for the first time, constrained, reserved, and painful; and we retired at an early hour to our respective apartht in self-exae, to myself, that solitude, the absence of other impressions, the previous circumstances that had operated on my character, my friendshi+p for Mrs Harley, and her eloquent, affectionate, reiterated, praises of her son, had coh dorht appear to others, and did appear even to ustus Harley to me) with a tender and fervent excess; an excess, perhaps, involving all eneral,' says Rousseau, 'do not sufficiently consider the influence which the first attachments, between man and woman, have over the remainder of their lives; they do not perceive, that an i, and so lively, as that of love, is productive of a long chain of effects, which pass unobserved in a course of years, yet, nevertheless, continue to operate till the day of their deaths' It was in vain I attempted to combat this illusion; my reason was but an auxiliary tojustice to high and uncoination lent her aid, and an iood unalloyed, completed the seduction

Frouarded in her conduct; she carefully avoided thean alteration made in the frame, she removed his picture from the library; but the constraint she put upon herself was too evident and painful; we no longer sought, with equal ardour, an interchange of sentiment, reserve took place of the tender confidence of friendshi+p; a thousand tiazed upon her dear averted countenance, I yearned to throw myself upon her bosom, to weep, to unfold to her the inuished for communication, and preyed upon itself! Dear and cruel friend, why did you transfix my heart with the barbed and enveno balsam?

My visits to Mrs Harley became less frequent; I shut myself up whole days in h its now leafless groves, absorbed inthe sickly sensibility ofwild, improbable, chimerical, visions of felicity, that, touched by the sober wand of truth, would have 'melted into thin air' 'The more desires I have' (observes an acute, and profound French Philosopher[4]) 'the less ardent they are

The torrents that divide theerous in their course A strong passion is a solitary passion, that concentrates all our desires within one point'

[Footnote 4: Helvetius]

CHAPTER XIX

I had not seen ht, in the month of January, between nine and ten o'clock, the family at Morton Park were alar at the hall door

On opening it, a servant appeared--and a chaise, the porter having unbolted the great gates, drew up to the door The man delivered a note addressed to Miss Courtney I was unacquainted with the handwriting, and unfolded it with trepidation It contained but a few lines, written in a fened with the name of a lady, who resided about twelve miles from Morton Park, at whose house Mrs Harley sometimes made a visit of a few days It stated--

'That my friend was seized at the mansion of this lady with an apoplectic fit, from which she had been restored, after some hours of insensibility: that the physicians were apprehensive of a relapse, and that Mrs Harley had expressed a desire of seeing Miss Courtney--A carriage and servants were sent for her conveyance'

Mr Morton was from home, his lady made no offer of any of her own doue, who had been at the Park for some days past, solicited permission to be ly have declined this proposal, but he repeated and enforced it with a vehemence, that, in the present hurried state of my mind, I had not spirits to oppose Shocked, alar into the chaise Montague stepped in after alloped, or rather flen the avenue, that led to the high road