Page:Duty and Inclination 2.pdf/215

Rh was that object: and though not beautiful, though not answering to the painting an exalted fancy had drawn of her, he nevertheless felt a conviction that she was the guardian spirit who had beamed upon his soul like some bright vision whilst just awakening from his lethargic slumber. The deepest impressions of gratitude seizing him, he would instantly have expressed them had not a delicate respect suppressed his speech.

Upon witnessing in Miss Airey the force of her emotions, the words he had essayed to utter died in faint murmurs upon his lips, and judiciously, to relieve her embarrassment, he turned to address himself to Mrs. Melbourne.

From their peculiar situation, companions in the same vessel ploughing the watery deep, Herbert and Douglas often accidentally met; and notwithstanding the admiration of the former for the latter daily strengthened, he would still have been sensible of reserve and distance, had not Douglas, by his usual ease and urbanity of address, endeavoured to dispel it.

The superiority of age, and other circumstances, were sufficient to preclude a near association; yet on account of some affinity in their mutual fate, Douglas was desirous to draw upon himself the regard of Herbert, and, after occasional conversations, so