But he saw Matilda. Again and again he repaired to the cottage, and ere he knew that he was in danger, he found himself completely enslaved by the artless, lovely manners, and rich and highly cultivated mind of her who never thought of conquest. But he was shackled, and how to break his bonds he knew not. Only one means presented itself, and that was to urge Clara to a decided and immediate step relative to him. She, unsuspecting his motive, and believing his happiness in her power, rejected him, vainly expecting to hear renewed declarations of affection, and to witness a sorrow and despair which she would, ere long, turn into hope and gladness. But, like the captive bird, who after weeks of imprisonment finds the door of his cage unbarred, he exulted in his newly gained liberty, and with delightful speed burst asunder every tie that bound him to his captor, and sought again those joys which he had feared were lost to him forever. Clara loved him, if the heart of a gay unthinking girl could love. Little had she dreamed that in the lowly Matilda she could find a rival, and that too, in the only heart whose worship she had ever really valued. But in his speaking countenance she read that her rejection gave no pain, nor was she long in discovering the cause of his alienated affections. Clara was now awoke from more sleeps than one—she had awoke from confidence in love, to prove that she had been bewildered with an _ignis fatuus_; her feelings of resentment, envy and revenge, which had slumbered so long, were now aroused and glowed with the intensity of a long smothered flame. {782} When she first left her native village, she was a stranger to the vices so prevalent among the young in modern times. But easy is the task to imbibe wrong sentiments—to learn that revenge is noble—that the end justifies the means, and that she who can best dissemble, most secretly effect her purposes, is most praiseworthy and admired. Her feelings naturally ardent, needed but an exciting cause to call into active exercise some of the most uncontrollable, and unamiable passions. Clara might have made, with proper government when young, an excellent woman. But no early discipline had prepared her for usefulness and happiness. An only daughter, the heiress of a large estate and honorable name, and possessed of many personal graces—she had known no restraints—met with no crosses to her inclinations, and had been taught, by precept and example, that admiration, conquest, dress and fashion, were the objects at which she should tend—the summit of her ambition. Mrs. Clayton had endeavored to instil good principles in all her pupils’ minds; but what can the lessons of the school-room effect, when the family circle extinguishes all the good feelings produced during a few hours instruction? Self-love was Clara’s idol—self-love, alas! is too often the destroyer of its worshipper.