Page:Camperdown - Griffith - 1836.djvu/130

 her, perhaps for ever, I determined to make one attempt to interest her in my favour. I had superintended the getting up of a beautiful prayer-book, the type, paper, plates and execution were perfect, and I had one copy exquisitely bound. I even ventured to write the name of this fair being in the first page, and intended to present it to her; but it was a month before I gained courage to make the attempt. At one time I thought to lay it on the ledge of her pew, in silence; but I could not bear that her devotions should be interrupted by what might be considered as an act of levity on my part, so I forbore. I ventured, at last, to address her on coming out of church; and to my surprise, I found myself walking forward with her. She always carried her prayer-book, and I asked permission to look at it; she smiled and gave it to me, and I then took the one intended for her from my pocket, and presented it to her, making my bow suddenly, and hastening with the speed of lightning from her sight—I need not say that the little worn out prayer-book is still a treasure to me.

How she received the book I could not tell, nor had I an opportunity of knowing, on the following Sunday, for it stormed so violently that none but a devoted lover, like myself, would have ventured out. She was not there, nor did I expect to see her; but I had an exquisite pleasure in being in a spot where I had so frequently been near her. On the Saturday following the lectures commenced; I was to attend three, Astronomy, Natural Philosophy and Chemistry, but fearing that my mind was in too unsettled a state to attend to them all, I only entered my name for two—Chemistry and Astronomy.

The lecture room was in a narrow street, badly lighted; and, there being a basement, it became necessary to have a number of steps to the porch. It