"Never more so; and unless my proposal is very distasteful to you, I beg you will write directly, and engage lodgings." "Distasteful! oh, no! quite the contrary. I shall be proud to exhibit my lovely wife in London, where, no doubt, she will be as much admired as she was abroad.--Do you think," he affectionately added, "that I have forgotten the exquisite pleasure I experienced at seeing you the object of general attraction wherever you moved?" This was said and felt kindly; still it did not inspire me with that confidence which it seemed likely to inspire; for I, though I was conscious of my husband's personal beauty, had no vanity to gratify in exhibiting him to the London world. I had no wish to be the most envied of women, it was sufficient for me to know that I was the happiest; and I thought that, if Pendarves loved as truly as I did, the consciousness of his happiness would have been sufficient for him. Still, I am well aware how wrong it is to judge the love of others according to our own capability of loving. As well, and as justly, might we confine beauty, or the power of pleasing, to one cast of features or complexion. All persons love after a manner of their own; and woe must befal the man or woman who expects to be loved according to their own way and their own degree of loving, without any consideration for the different character and different feelings of the beloved object. "How absurd I am!" said I to myself, after I had shed some weak tears in the solitude of my chamber, because Pendarves did not love me, I found, as I loved him. "How absurd! True, he delights in the idea of exhibiting me, and I have no wish to exhibit him. After all, he loves more generously than I do, and my selfishness is nothing to be proud of." Thus I reasoned with myself, and tried to fortify my mind to bear the cares and the dangers which I had, on principle, provoked. "One word, Helen," said my mother, when she was alone with me after what had passed relative to my projected journey: "Are you sure, my dear child, that in urging your husband to go to London you have acted wisely?" "As sure as the consciousness of my bounded vision of futurity can allow me to be. I thought it better to forestal my husband's wishes than to wait for the expression of them." "If not better, it was less mortifying," replied my quick-sighted parent; and we said no more on the subject.