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"I am happy to remark, my dear son, that you have resumed your former
pleasures and seem to be returning to yourself. And yet you are still
unhappy and still avoid our society. For some time I was lost in
conjecture as to the cause of this, but yesterday an idea struck me,
and if it is well founded, I conjure you to avow it. Reserve on such a
point would be not only useless, but draw down treble misery on us
all."
I trembled violently at his exordium, and my father continued--"I
confess, my son, that I have always looked forward to your marriage
with our dear Elizabeth as the tie of our domestic comfort and the stay
of my declining years. You were attached to each other from your
earliest infancy; you studied together, and appeared, in dispositions
and tastes, entirely suited to one another. But so blind is the
experience of man that what I conceived to be the best assistants to my
plan may have entirely destroyed it. You, perhaps, regard her as your
sister, without any wish that she might become your wife. Nay, you may
have met with another whom you may love; and considering yourself as
bound in honour to Elizabeth, this struggle may occasion the poignant
misery which you appear to feel."
"My dear father, reassure yourself. I love my cousin tenderly and
sincerely. I never saw any woman who excited, as Elizabeth does, my
warmest admiration and affection. My future hopes and prospects are
entirely bound up in the expectation of our union."
"The expression of your sentiments of this subject, my dear Victor,
gives me more pleasure than I have for some time experienced. If you
feel thus, we shall assuredly be happy, however present events may cast
a gloom over us. But it is this gloom which appears to have taken so
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