With a look of softness new to her features, new to her character, and emanating from sensations of delight new to her hopes, Elinor sunk gently upon her chair, yet left him full possession of her hand; and, for some instants, seemed silent from a luxury of inward enjoyment. 'Is it Harleigh,' she then cried, 'Albert Harleigh, I see at my feet? Ah! what is the period, since I have known him, in which I would not joyfully have resigned all the rest of my life, for a sight, a moment such as this! Dear, dear, delicious poison! thrill, thrill through my veins! throb at my heart! new string every fibre of my frame! Is it, then, granted me, at last, to see thee thus? and thus dare speak to thee? to give sound to my feelings; to allow utterance of my love? to dare suffer my own breath to emit the purest flame that ever warmed a virgin heart?--Ah! Harleigh! proud Harleigh!--' Harleigh, embarrassed had risen, though without quitting her hand, and re-seated himself. 'Proud, proud Harleigh!' she continued, angrily snatching away her hand; 'you think even this little moment of sympathy, too long for love and Elinor! you fear, perhaps, that she should expect its duration, or repetition? Know me, Harleigh, better! I come not to sue for your compassion,--I would not accept it!--Elinor may fail to excite your regard, but she will never make you blush that you have excited hers. My choice itself speaks the purity of my passion, for are not Harleigh and Honour one?' She paused to recover some composure, and then went on. 'You have attached neither a weak, giddy, unguarded fool, nor an idly wilful or romantic voluptuary. My defence is grated upon your character as much as upon my own. I could divide it into many branches; but I will content myself with only striking at its root, namely, the Right of woman, if endowed with senses, to make use of them. O Harleigh! why have I seen you wiser and better than all your race; sounder in your judgment, more elegant in your manners, more spirited in your conduct;--lively though benevolent,--gentle, though brilliant,--Oh Albert! Albert! if I must listen to you with the same dull ears, look at you with the same unmarking eyes, and think of you with the same unmeaning coldness, with which I hear, see, and consider the time-wearing, spirit-consuming, soul-wasting tribe, that daily press upon my sight, and offend my understanding? Can you ask, can you expect, can you wish to doom half your species to so degraded a state? to look down upon the wife, who is meant for the companion of your existence; and upon the mother, of whose nature you must so largely partake; as upon mere sleepy, slavish, uninteresting automatons? Say! speak! answer, Harleigh! can such be your lordly, yet most unmanly desire?' 'And is it seriously that Elinor would have me reply to such a question?'