"
"I can never forget it; but I will strive to endure it with
resignation. I feel that I must still cherish the presumptuous hope
that you will yet relent."
"Destroy not your own peace; for the hope must be a vain one.
Good-afternoon;" and the lady departed before the attorney had time to
add another hyperbolical profession of a passion which, however well
acted, was not half so deeply grounded as he had led the unsuspecting
object of it to believe. That he really loved her was to some extent
true. That his love was earnest and pure, such as the blight of coldness
and inconstancy would render painful, was not true,--far from it. He had
sought her hand, not to lay at her feet the offering of a hallowed
affection, but to realize the object we have before mentioned,--to
enable him, by the possession of her vast wealth, to live a life of ease
and pleasure.
He had commenced his attack upon her affections with some prospect of
success. To the occasional professional visit he paid her father he had
added frequent social calls, in which he had used all his eloquence to
enlist the sympathies of the fair daughter.
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