Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/223

Rh "What do you think of it?" said Lawrence as I silently refolded the letter.

"It seems to me," returned I, "that she is casting her pearls before swine. May they be satisfied with trampling them under their feet, and not turn again and rend her! But I shall say no more against her: I see that she was actuated by the best and noblest motives in what she has done; and if the act is not a wise one, may Heaven protect her from its consequences! May I keep this letter, Lawrence?—you see she has never once mentioned me throughout—or made the most distant allusion to me; therefore, there can be no impropriety or harm in it."

"And therefore, why should you wish to keep it?"

"Were not these characters written by her hand? and were not these words conceived in her mind, and many of them spoken by her lips?"

"Well," said he. And so I kept it;