The whole conditions of her position were clear to Astræa. She had not now considered them for the first time; but the mistrust, not of my love for her, but of my character, was now first awakened; and if she trembled for the consequences, it was not for her own sake, but for mine. Men can not comprehend this abnegation of self in women, and, not being able to comprehend it, they do not believe in it. It requires an elevation and generosity rare in the crisis of temptation, and, perhaps, also, an entire change of surrounding circumstances and responsibilities, to enable them to estimate it justly; the power of bestowing happiness through a life-long sacrifice, instead of the privilege of receiving it at a trifling risk. When we had become a little more at our ease, and I had endeavored by a variety of commonplaces to revive her faith in me, Astræa, with the most perfect frankness, entered upon her history. I will not break up the narrative by the occasional interruptions to which it was subjected by my curiosity and impatience, but preserve it as nearly entire as I can. "There is a period," said Astræa, "in all our lives when we pass through delusions which an enlarged experience dispels. We too often begin by making deities, and end by total skepticism. I suppose, like every body else, I had my season of self-deception, although it has not made me an absolute infidel." And as she said this, she looked at me with a smile so full of sweetness, that I yielded myself up implicitly to the enchantment. "I was devotedly attached to my father," she continued; "he educated me, and was so proud of the faculties which his own careful tending drew into activity, that it was the greatest happiness of my life to deserve the kindness which anticipated their development. There was no task my father set to me I did not feel myself able to conquer by the mere energy of the love I bore him. The education he bestowed upon me was not the cultivation of the intellect alone--I owe him a deeper debt, fatally as I have discharged it--for it was his higher aim to educate my affections. He succeeded so well, that I would at any moment have cheerfully surrendered my own fondest desires, or have sacrificed life itself, to comply with any wish of his. You shall judge whether I have a right to say that I loved him better than I loved myself.