Page:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1st edition), Volume 3 (Agnes Grey).djvu/274

266 as she was; for I could appreciate his excellence, which she could not; I would devote my life to the promotion of his happiness; she would destroy his happiness for the momentary gratification of her own vanity.

"Oh, if he could but know the difference!" I would earnestly exclaim. "But no! I would not have him see my heart—but if he could but know her hollowness, her worthless, heartless frivolity—he would then be safe, and I should be—almost happy, though I might never see him more!"

I fear, by this time, the reader is well nigh disgusted with the folly and weakness I have so freely laid before him. I never disclosed it then, and would not have done so had my own sister or my mother been with me in the house.

I was a close and resolute dissembler—in this one case at least. My prayers, my tears, my wishes, fears, and lamentations were witnessed by myself and Heaven alone.

When we are harassed by sorrows or anxieties, or long oppressed by any powerful feelings which we must keep to ourselves, for which we can obtain and seek no sympathy from any living creature, and which, yet, we