Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 3).djvu/161

 and benevolence sat upon your countenance, and it was only an improper education, or pernicious company that rendered you deceitful, and led you to betray the unsuspicious heart, which reposed upon you for happiness.

"Secretly I indulged my passion, yet without the smallest hope of having it returned; for though a soft beam from the eye of St. Julian sometimes tempted me to think I was not utterly indifferent to him, I never had reason to imagine he thought seriously about me; but, notwithstanding my hopelessness respecting him, so great, so exquisite was the pleasure I derived from seeing, from listening to him, that the idea of foregoing it was infinitely more painful to me than that of death.

"My uncle heard my determination of retiring to a cloister with a satisfaction which he could not disguise, though he attempted it; and my aunt and her children with evident delight: generous to the last, my