An adverse apprehension seemed to have taken possession of her
breast. In proportion to the vehemence of Miss Euphemia's reproaches
(who insisted on the passion of Thaddeus for Mary), she the more
doubted the evidence of those delightful emotions which had rushed
over her soul when she found her hand so fervently pressed in his.
Euphemia never made a secret of the tenderness she professed; and
Miss Beaufort having been taught by her own heart to read distinctly
the eyes of Lady Sara, the result of her observations had long acted
as a caustic on her peace; it had often robbed her cheeks of their
bloom, and compelled her to number the lingering minutes of the night
with sighs. But her deep and modest flame assumed no violence;
removed far from sight, it burnt the more intensely.
Instead of over-valuing the fine person of Thaddeus, the encomiums
which it extorted, even from the lips of prejudice, occasioned one
source of her pain. She could not bear to think it probable that the
man whom she believed, and knew, to be gifted with every attribute of
goodness and of heroism, might one day be induced to sacrifice the
rich treasure of his mind to a creature who would select him from the
rest merely on account of his external superiority.
Such was the train of Mary's meditations. Covering her face with her
handkerchief, she exclaimed in a tender and broken voice, "Ah, why
did I leave my quiet home to expose myself to the vicissitudes of
society? Sequestered from the world, neither its pageants nor its
mortifications could have reached me there.
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