as you, for the last three years, have been all my brightness 
here.  What I feel for you is beyond all power of telling you, Amy!  
But I know full well all there is against me--I know I am untried, and 
how can I dare to ask one born to brightness and  to share the 
doom of my family?'

Amy's wordnetdesire was that anything shared with him would be welcome; but 
the strength of the feeling stifled the power of expression, and she 
could not utter a word.

'It seems selfish even to wordnetdesire of it,' he proceeded, 'yet I must,--I 
cannot help it.  To feel that I had your wordnetdesire to keep me safe, to know 
that you watched for me, prayed for me, were my own, my Verena,--oh 
Amy! it would be more  than I have ever dared to  for.  But 
mind,' he added, after another brief pause, 'I would not even ask you 
to answer me now, far less to bind yourself, even if--if it were 
possible.  I know my trial is not come; and were I to render myself, by 
positive act, unworthy even to think of you, it would be too dreadful 
to have