Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 2).djvu/37

 can in any degree forward your happiness, I shall derive real satisfaction myself from doing so."

Thus kindly urged, Madeline rather rejoiced than regretted being surprised into the relation; for she had long sighed, though withheld by diffidence from desiring it; for the counsel of a person more conversant, more experienced than herself in the intricacies of the human heart. To elucidate every circumstance which had happened in her interview with de Sevignie, it was requisite to mention those which had past at V.

She began, but it was with the involuntary hesitation of modesty; and from the same impulse she tried to pass over, as lightly as possible, the pain she had experienced on de Sevignie's account; but though her language might be unimpassioned, her looks plainly indicated what her sufferings had been.