"Mr. Thorburn called to-day. He must have courage, for he knows my aversion to society. If I walk in my sleep let him thank me; he dared not have come without this excuse. I felt my blood tingling in my forehead and fingers when I looked in and saw that the _gentleman_, as he had announced himself, was a stranger. But the time _rots_ so with me--oh! that excellent word just hits the decay of the hours! they drip, drip away, like sodden wood--I could not be displeased at his intrusion. There is life in a new face, and I am beginning to think Lucy too ugly to keep; now that is because she is the only person I see, and her face comes looking in on me through my ugly thoughts and takes their deformity. But he is nice-looking. He is thoroughly English. Oh what a charm there is in a true English face! It is so manly, so genial, so sterling and courageous!--the very opposite to those yellow Italian visages with their red-black eyes and lollipop smirks. I am not sure that I couldn't like this man. He invites confidence, somehow. And there is a big and ponderous ghost called Solitude, that drives me towards him. His eye meets mine fearlessly. He thinks me beautiful. If he were to see me in a passion, with my hair loose and my eyes on fire, would he shrink like my valiant little southerner? "I rated Mr. Thorburn to-day for watching me. I must like him, to have spoken so smartly. If I could not help meeting a man whom I disliked, I would serve him as my husband served me, and would betray him with such sweetness as would make him think me a witch. I have the power. I think I must be mad at times. Such high thoughts take me that my body will not hold my spirit, and some day I shall see it glide from me and vanish, with just such a laugh as I give when I know I shall not be heard, and when my mood is intoxicating. Let me own here, all to myself, that Mr. Thorburn pleases me. He reminds me of the picture of papa in grandmamma's locket. He must be greatly taken with me to presume as he does. He is too much of a gentleman to force himself upon me as he does if his courtesy did not fall before my beauty. If he should fall in love with me--let him. Am I a celestial intelligence, that I can control a man's heart, and bid it not love, if I choose it should not love? His dream gives him a claim. If I was asleep at the time then must that vision have been my soul which slipped from my body and shone upon him from a cloud. It was possible, and I would have told him this, but his smile can be ironical; and his nature is not yet right for the reception of my beliefs. Why did he kiss the rose I flung away? I can tell; but I will not write it down.