“Is this soft hand thy answer? or that look, Which, though so soon withdrawn, too gentle seem’d For harsh denial’s herald; or that blush Which now, o’er thy snowy beauty spreading, Heightens all thy loveliness!” “And when those gentle eyes, thus rais’d to mine, Melt in my ardent gaze; yet willing not With haste ungracious to reprove my love, A moment tremble ere they fall again; Oh, ’tis a feeling not of earth! ’tis one Which man’s experience hath not taught him how To shape in words.” She had opened the letter, was reading, and had become so much absorbed, that she had not only ceased to hear what Gotterimo said, but was no longer conscious even of his presence. He began to perceive this, and with instinctive politeness, though with a feeling of much disappointment, first became silent, and then, fearing he might be troublesome, after fidgeting a little, and coughing once or twice, left the room. Julia, without perceiving his departure, continued reading till she had twice begun and twice finished the letter. Then, laying it open on her bosom, and crossing her hands upon it, she raised her streaming eyes to heaven. The door from the library opened: she withdrew her eyes from their upward gaze, and they rested on Fitz-Ullin. “Oh, Edmund!” she exclaimed, and hastily presenting the letter to him, she covered her face with both her hands, and leaned on the table. Fitz-Ullin glanced at the open letter, and found it to be one which he himself had written to our heroine above a year before. “Why, Julia,” he said, “should this letter, which you have replied to so fully, so decidedly, and so long since, now seem to surprise or agitate you?” “I never replied to it! I never received it! I never saw it till this moment!” said Julia. “What, Julia!” exclaimed Fitz-Ullin, sinking on one knee beside her, and drawing both her hands, from before her face, “do you indeed tell me that you have not, in reply to that letter, rejected the heart and hand it offers?—rejected them, too, on the plea of a prior and long cherished attachment to another, that other—the unfortunate Henry St. Aubin?” “Oh, never! never!” exclaimed Julia, with a fervour of manner, tone of voice, and expression of countenance, which carried at once conviction and happiness to the heart of Edmund. That look, that manner, not only said, “I have not rejected,” they also said, “I will accept!” Fitz-Ullin gazed upon her for some moments in the silence of powerful emotion. “Julia,” he said, at length, in a voice scarcely audible, “what a load of misery you have removed from my heart!”