Page:Duty and Inclination. Volume 3.pdf/148

146, who, together with his lady, held him in the highest estimation possible.

The letter then stated that if she would give him the least encouragement, and allow hope once more to dawn upon his mind, he should be raised from a state of the utmost despondency and misery, to become at once the happiest of men, and surmount every difficulty that might henceforth arise to oppose him; but that if, by her answer, she drove him a second time to despair, his passion, enfolded in the deepest recesses of his heart, would even there be nourished; that there it might live and feed upon his vitals, as the canker-worm does upon the author of its existence; and that after some previous arrangements in his affairs, he should fly from his native country, to seek in other regions that peace which had been denied him in his own.

Such was nearly the tenor of those impassioned lines Rosilia and her parents mutually perused; the latter launching at intervals into reproaches and invectives against the author, for his still persevering pursuit of their child; alternately censuring themselves for having so long remained in ignorance as to his real sentiments, and for having admitted his frequent visits.

Rosilia found herself in a dilemma the most perplexing, from which she knew not how to extricate herself, but by submitting her judgment entirely to the discretion of her parents; neither of whom could take upon themselves to write the desired answer,