"Strong feelings and energy of character are not always best for our happiness," I went on; "you expected too much; you found the world cold and selfish, and your heart closed upon it. This was the action of a temperament eager and easily chilled; and it was natural enough that people who could not move your sympathies should think that your heart was dead or callous. Yet there it was, watching for the being who was one day to call up its idolatry--for it is not love that will constitute your happiness, Astræa--it must be idolatry. It is that for which you live--to relinquish yourself for another. All is darkness and probation with you till she who now inspires so much worship to which she is indifferent, shall herself become the worshiper. It is the instinct of your nature, the secret of the enigma, which makes you seem exactly the opposite of what you are." I might have run on I know not to what excess, for I felt my eloquence kindling and rising to an extravagant height, when I perceived Astræa change color and avert her eyes. "Have I offended you, Astræa?" I inquired. "Offended me?" she answered; "no, you have done me a service. You have shown me the error of my life--the folly and delusion of hoping for a destiny different from that of the ordinary lot." "Why do you call it a delusion? You will yet find that haven of rest toward which your heart looks so tremulously. The bird whose instinct carries it over the wild seas from continent to continent sometimes droops its jaded wings and sinks, but it makes land at last." "No, no; it was a dream. There is no reality in such foolish notions." "Come," said I, with increasing earnestness, "you must not speak against your convictions. You do not think it a dream--you rely confidently on the hope that the time will come--" "The thought is madness," interrupted Astræa, quickly; "no--no--no--there is no such hope for me. Do not misconceive me. You have read my nature as clearly as if the volume of my whole life to its inmost thoughts were laid open before you. But the dream is over. It might have been the pride and glory of my soul to have waited upon some high Intelligence--to have followed its progress, cheered it patiently in secret to exertion, encouraged its ambition, and lain in the shadow of its triumphs. It is over. That may never be!" Her voice shook, although she looked calmly at me as she spoke, trying to conceal her emotion. Her hand accidentally lay in mine. There was a danger in it which I would not see. "And you have not found the Intelligence for which you sought?" I demanded, in a voice that conveyed more than it expressed in words. "Yes," she replied slowly, "I have found Intelligence--original, hard, athletic; but wanting in the sympathy that alone wins the heart of woman." "Astræa," I replied, "your imagination has pictured an ideal which I fear you will never find realized."