 never erased from her mind; ... discovered ... that I had never made her happy! that she was merely enduring, suffering me ... while my whole confiding soul was undividedly hers!...'

Edgar shuddered at this picture; 'But why, then,' he cried, 'since she seemed amiable as well as fair, why did she accept you?'

'Ask half the married women in the nation how they became wives: they will tell you their friends urged them; ... that they had no other establishment in view; ... that nothing is so uncertain as the repetition of matrimonial powers in women; ... and that those who cannot solicit what they wish, must accommodate themselves to what offers. This first adventure, however, is now no longer useful to you, though upon its hard remembrance was founded my former caution: but I am even myself satisfied, at present, that the earliest partiality of Camilla has been yours; what now you have to weigh, is the strength or inadequacy of her character, for guiding that partiality to your mutual happiness. My second melancholy history will best illustrate this difficulty. You may easily believe, the last of my intentions was any further essay in a lottery I had found so inauspicious; but, while cold even to apathy, it was my inevitable chance to fall in the way of a pleasing and innocent young creature, who gave me, unsought and unwished-for, her heart. The boon, nevertheless, soon caught my own: for what is so alluring as the voluntary affection of a virtuous woman?'

'Well,' cried Edgar, 'and what now could disturb your tranquillity?'

'The insufficiency of that heart to its own decision. I soon found her apparent predilection was simply the result of the casualty which brought me almost exclusively into her society, but unmarked by any consonance of taste, feeling, or understanding. Her inexperience had made her believe, since she preferred me to the few who surrounded her, I was the man of her choice: with equal facility I concurred in the same mistake; ... for what is so credulous as self-love? But such a regard, the child of accident, not selection, was unequal, upon the discovery of the dissimilarity of our dispositions, to the smallest sacrifice. My melancholy returned with the view of our mutual delusion; lassitude of pleasing was the precursor of discontent. Dissipation then, in the form of amusement, presented itself to her aid: retirement and books came to
