"I know not why you should talk of suffering, my dear friend. I had hoped that the sweet friendship which for several months past has united us, was to you, as to me, a source of the tenderest satisfaction. But our feelings for each other must indeed be widely different. There is no circumstance that could befall you, productive of even worldly convenience and advantage, but I should rejoice at it as if sent to myself: but you, my friend, appear to mourn because from a poor man I am become a rich one." "Alas!--Cruel!--Is it for that I mourn? Think you that my heart can forget what I have been to you, or what I hoped to be? Can you forget the hours that you have devoted to me? And is this the end of it?" "I neither can nor will forget the happy period of our tender friendship. Nor is there any reason, my excellent Mrs. Simpson, that it should not continue, even as the Lord hath permitted that it should begin. Believe me, that were a similar circumstance to happen to you:--I mean, were you accidentally to connect yourself by means of marriage with great wealth and extended influence;--instead of complaining of it, I should rejoice with an exceeding great joy. It could, as I should imagine, make no possible difference in our friendly and affectionate feelings for each other; and I should know that your piety and heavenly-minded zeal in the cause of grace and faith would be rendered greatly more profitable and efficient thereby." "You do not, then, understand a woman's heart, Mr. Cartwright! What is there, short of the torments of the bottomless pit, that can compare to the suffering of seeing the heart one believed to be one's own given to another?" "I dare say it must be very disagreeable indeed, my dear friend. But no such idea, I do assure you, would occur to me were you to marry. Indeed, my own view of the case is, that as an holy ordinance, it should be entered into with as little attention as possible to mere pleasure. To a man like myself, whose heart is altogether given to things above, the idea of making a marriage of love, as it is called, would be equally absurd and profane. My object in the connexion I have just formed, was to increase my sphere of influence and utility; and nothing, I assure you, can be more opportune and fortunate than my having found this very worthy and richly-endowed person. It would give me unfeigned satisfaction, my dear friend, to hear that you had been equally fortunate, and, permit me to say, equally wise." "Oh, Mr. Cartwright! I am sure I had no idea when--when I attached myself to you, that you disapproved of marriage among those who love, as I thought you and I did; for most surely I thought, Mr. Cartwright, that I should have been your wife." "No?--Is it possible, my dear friend, that such an idea as that, so perfectly unauthorized, could have occurred to you? I really am greatly surprised, for I thought that we understood one another perfectly."