“Oh, yes! It will—it must—it does!” he exclaimed, pressing the offered hand to his lips. She drew it gently away; but took his arm as they followed the rest of the party. If he considered it so very wrong even to hope, she thought, why did he ask her to marry him? and Lady Susan, herself, had told Frances that he had done so. Edmund was, or at least believed that he ought to have been, cheered in one point of view; for Julia appeared to be reconciled to him, appeared to have pardoned his rashness: but, he was saddened too: indeed, there was a peculiar dreariness about his present feelings; for it now seemed to him, that they fully understood each other, and that Julia had forbid him to hope. Yet, he thought, he had never hoped. What was it, then, of which he now deplored the loss? Some undefined, unacknowledged expectations, must have been founded on the pleasure he had so often, with intoxicating delight, marked in Julia, when he had, by look or word, betrayed some part of that love, he thought it his duty not to declare; till his birth should be distinctly ascertained; a contingency which, when put in high spirits by a smile, he had, sometimes, thought by no means improbable! Now, Julia knew, (he believed,) the full extent of his love; and she had showed any thing but gratification. She had, it is true, mingled with her displeasure at his presumption, a generous compassion for his sufferings; and she had offered him, mournfully, but kindly, friendship as a consolation for the hopelessness of the passion she had yet decidedly checked. And was not Julia’s friendship an inestimable treasure? Was he not an object of regard, of affection to her?—Oh, how delightful that idea; were it not blasted by the thought, that he must, one day, see her bestow warmer, dearer, fonder feelings on another! on some one, who having all else that this world can give, must have their abundance crowned by the bliss of possessing Julia’s love! Or should she ever be Henry’s? He looked on her as he asked himself this question; but he thought of the mountainous waves of the sea in a storm, and, for a moment, felt the sinful wish that he might be overwhelmed by them, ere so terrible an apprehension should be realized! Julia, as she descended the stairs, and stepped into the carriage, wondered how Edmund could love a comparative stranger, as Lady Susan certainly was, so much as to be rendered thus unhappy on her account: but he was unhappy, and therefore she would never be unkind to him again! She could not, it was true, have the same pleasure in feeling that excessive friendship for him now, as when she thought her friendship was all the happiness he desired: yet, if it was all the happiness he possessed, it should never be taken from him.