 worship' (raising her fine eyes and white arms to heaven) 'desert me when I desert you!'

Who that had seen her countenance and gesture at that moment, could have imagined she was calling on heaven to witness an engagement to lead a life of infamy? Rather would they have thought her a sublime enthusiast breathing forth the worship of a grateful soul.

It may be supposed that Glenmurray's heart beat with exultation at this confession from Adeline, and that he forgot, in the promised indulgence of his passion, those bounds which strict decorum required. But Glenmurray did her justice; he beheld her as she was—all purity of feeling and all delicacy; and, if possible, the slight favours by which true love is long contented to be fed, though granted by Adeline with more conscious emotion, were received by him with more devoted respect: besides, he again felt that mixture of pain with pleasure, on this assurance of her love, which he had experienced before. For he knew, though Adeline did not, the extent of the degradation into which the step which her conscience approved would necessarily precipitate her; and experience alone could convince him that her sensibility to shame, when she was for the first time exposed to it, would not overcome her supposed fortitude and boasted contempt of the world's opinion, and change all the roses of love into the thorns of regret and remorse.

And could he who doted on her;—he, too, who admired her as much for her consummate purity as for any other of her qualities;—could he bear to behold this fair creature, whose open eye beamed with the consciousness of virtue, casting her timid glances to the earth, and shrinking with horror from the conviction of having in the world's eye forfeited all pretensions to that virtue which alone was the end of her actions! Would the approbation of her own mind be sufficient to support her under such a trial, though she had with such sweet earnestness talked to him of its efficacy! These reflections had for some time past been continually occurring to him, and now they came across his mind blighting the triumphs of successful passion:—nay, but from the dread of incurring yet more ridicule, on account of the opposition of his practice to his theory, and perhaps the indignant contempt of Adeline, he could have thrown himself at her feet, conjuring her to submit to the degradation of being a wife.

But, unknown to Glenmurray, perhaps, another reason prompted him to desire this concession from Adeline. We are never more likely to be in reality the slaves of selfishness
