Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/151

 greatly enforced since we have become known to each other: thou hast honoured me with thy affection; but that union, on which we rely for happiness, could not take place while both of us were poor: my habits, indeed, have made labour and rustic obscurity less painful than they would prove to my friend; but my present condition is wholly inconsistent with marriage: as long as my exertions are insufficient to maintain us both, it would be unjustifiable to burden you with new cares and duties: of this you are more thoroughly convinced than I am. The love of independence and ease, and impatience of drudgery, are woven into your constitution: perhaps they are carried to an erroneous extreme, and derogate from that uncommon excellence by which your character is, in other respects, distinguished; but they cannot be removed.

This obstacle was unexpectedly removed by the death of your brother; however justly to be deplored was this catastrophe, yet, like every other event, some of its consequences were good: by giving you possession of the means of independence and leisure, by enabling us to complete a contract which poverty alone had thus long delayed, this event has been, at the same time, the most disastrous and propitious which could have happened.

Why thy brother should have concealed from us the possession of this money—why, with such copious means of indulgence, and leisure, he should still pursue his irksome trade, and live in so penurious a manner, has been a topic of endless and unsatisfactory conjecture between us. It was not difficult to suppose that this money was held in trust for another; but in that case it was unavoidable that some document or memorandum, or at least some claimant would appear. Much time has since elapsed, and you have thought yourself at length justified in appropriating this money to your own use.

Our flattering prospects are now shut in; you must return to your original poverty, and once more depend for precarious subsistence on your needle. You cannot restore the whole; for unavoidable expenses, and the change of your mode of living, have consumed some part of it: for so much you must consider yourself as Weymouth's debtor.