In Juliet, though happiness was not less exalted, pleasure wore the chastened garb of moderation, even in the midst of a frankness that laid open her heart. Yet, seeing his suit thus authorized by her brother, and certain of the approbation of the Bishop, and of her uncle, to so equal and honourable an alliance; she indulged her soft propensities in his favour, by gently conceding avowals, that rewarded not alone his persevering constancy, but her own long and difficult forbearance. 'Many efforts, many conflicts,' she cried, 'in my cruel trials, I have certainly found harder; but none, none so distasteful, as the unremitting necessity of seeming always impenetrable--where most I was sensitive!' 'By sweetness such as this,' cried Harleigh, 'you would almost persuade me to rejoice at a suspense that has nearly maddened me! Yet,--could you have conceived the agony, the despair of my mind, at your icy, relentless silence! not once to trust me as a friend! not one moment to confide in my integrity! never to consult, to commune, to speak, nor to hear!--You smile?--Can it be at the pain you have inflicted?'-- 'Oh no, no, no! If I smile, 'tis at the greater pain I have, I trust, averted! While conscious that I might, eventually, be chained to another, every duty admonished me to resist every feeling!--Yet with hope always, ultimately, before me, I had not the force to utter a word,--a baneful word!--that might teach you to renounce me!--even though I deemed it indispensable to my honour to exact a total separation. Had I confided to you my fearful secret,--had you yourself aided the abolition of my shackles, should I not, in a situation so delicate, so critical, have fixed an eternal barrier between us,--or have sacrificed the fame of both to the most wounding of calumnies? Ah no! from the instant that my heart interfered,--that I was conscious of a new motive that urged my wish of liberation,--I have held it my duty, I have felt it my future happiness, to avoid,--to fear,--to fly you!--' 'I was most favoured, then, it seems,' replied Harleigh, with a smile of rapture, 'when I thought you most inexorable? I must thank you for your rejections, your avoidance, your implacable, immoveable coldness?' 'Reverse, else, the medal,' cried she, gaily, 'and see whether the impression will be more to your taste!' 'Loveliest Miss Ellis! most beloved Miss Granville! My own,--at length! at length! my own sweet Juliet! that, and that only can be to my taste which has brought me to the bliss of this moment!' With blushing tenderness, Juliet then confessed, that at the moment of his first generous declaration, following the summer-house scene with Elinor, she had felt pierced with an aggravated horrour of her nameless ties, that had nearly burst her heart asunder.