“Oh! Rosamond,” continued Caroline, whose mind was now too highly wrought for raillery, “is love to be trifled with? No, only by trifling minds or by rash characters, by those who do not conceive its power--its danger. Recollect what we have just seen: a young, beautiful woman sinking into the grave with shame--deserted by her parents--wishing her child unborn. Do you remember her look of agony when we praised that child? the strongest charm of nature reversed--the strongest ties dissolved; and love brought her to this! She is only a poor servant girl. But the highest and the fairest, those of the most cultivated understandings, of the tenderest hearts, cannot love bring them down to the same level--to the same fate?--And not only our weak sex, but over the stronger sex, and the strongest of the strong, and the wisest of the wise, what is, what has ever been the power, the delusions of that passion, which can cast a spell over the greatest hero, throw a blot on the brightest glory, blast in a moment a life of fame!--What must be the power of that passion, which can inspire genius in the dullest and the coldest, waken heroism in the most timid of creatures, exalt to the highest point, or to the lowest degrade our nature--the bitterest curse, or the sweetest blessing Heaven bestows on us in this life!--Oh! sister, is love to be trifled with?” Caroline paused, and Rosamond, for some instants, looked at her and at her mother in silence; then exclaimed, “All this from Caroline! Are not you astonished, mother?” “No,” said Mrs. Percy; “I was aware that this was in Caroline’s mind.” “I was not,” said Rosamond. “She who never spoke of love!--I little imagined that she thought of it so highly, so seriously.” “Yes, I do think of it seriously, highly may Heaven grant!” cried Caroline, looking fervently upwards as she spoke with an illuminated countenance. “May Heaven grant that love be a blessing and not a curse to me! Heaven grant that I may never, in any moment of selfish vanity, try to excite a passion which I cannot return! Heaven grant that I never may feel the passion of love but for one whom I shall entirely esteem, who shall be worthy to fill my whole soul!”