Love, then, is omnipotent, if he can effect such changes as these! Alas! Love can work much for our unhappiness, but little for our felicity:—he may make the gladsome companion melancholy and serious; but he seldom covers the countenance of the morose one with smiles!
Mary-Anne endeavoured to seem as reserved as possible with Richard; and yet, from time to time, when she thought he did not notice her, she fixed her eyes upon him with an expression of such heart-devoted tenderness, that it seemed as if she were pouring forth her entire soul to the divinity whom she worshipped.
In the grotesque and colossal sculptures, and the mountainous architectural piles of the East, we seem to behold the products of an imagination struggling with conceptions too vast for its compass, and hence endeavouring to make some approximation to the reality by heaping up the irregular and huge invisible forms;—and thus did the tortured and embarrassed mind of this poor girl, unacquainted with the precise nature of the sentiment it cherished, maintain a conflict with the feelings which oppressed it, and offer up an idolatry of its own invention to the object of its unbounded veneration.
Mr. Gregory could not but perceive this change in his daughter's behaviour; and he was more or less at a loss to conceive the cause.
He had entertained, for a few days previously, a faint suspicion that Mary-Anne had peradventure formed an attachment, which would thus account for her altered demeanour; for since her call upon Markham, had her manners changed. But the good-hearted father was still loth to believe that his daughter's young heart had been smitten—and for the simple reason because he did not wish it to be so.
Although he respected Markham, he was like all parents, who, possessing fortunes themselves, are anxious that the suitors for their daughters' hands should also be enabled to produce a modicum of this world's lucre.
He was therefore unwilling to admit in his own mind the conviction that his suspicion was well-founded: he fancied that change of scene or amusement would probably operate favourably upon his daughter's mind, and bring her spirits back to their proper tone; and in this resolution was he confirmed, when in the course of that Sunday evening, he saw the confirmation of his suspicion. He could no longer doubt:—a thousand little incidents proved to him the attachment of his daughter to Richard Markham; and his quick glance convinced him that she was not loved by her tutor in return.
That night Mr. Gregory lay awake, pondering upon the best course to pursue. At one moment he thought of communicating to Markham the state of his daughter's heart (for he could not suppose that Richard was aware of the passion of which he was the object), and permitting the young couple to look upon each other as destined to be one day united:—at another moment, he imagined that it would be better to allow things to take their chance for a short time, and thereby ascertain whether the attachment gained ground on the part of his daughter, and whether it would become mutual (for he was entirely ignorant of Markham's love for another); and at length he resolved upon dispensing with the services of Richard, and trusting to time to eradicate the seeds of the unfortunate passion from the heart of Mary-Anne.
This plan Mr. Gregory put into execution in the course of a few days—indeed, the very next time that Richard called at his house.