“I know not—and yet——”
“Ah! you hesitate, my dear young lady—and you will accord me a hearing,” exclaimed the old woman, eagerly. “In fact, I appeal to your sense of justice not to refuse me this opportunity of vindicating myself against the suspicions which, I am well aware, your father entertains concerning me. But, tell me—what book is that which you hold in your hand?” demanded Mrs. Mortimer, half-suspecting that it might be a novel, and in that case hoping to find a pretext for giving the conversation a turn towards the topic of love.
“It is ‘Ivanhoe,’ madam,” said Agnes. “But really I must not remain here any longer: I should be sorry to suspect you—and yet my father——”
“Dearest lady, not even your parent’s prejudices should render you capable of an act of injustice,” interrupted Mrs. Mortimer, with an emphasis that made Agnes pause as she was on the point of retreating. “You are engaged in the perusal of one of the finest tales in the English language,” she continued, abruptly diverting the conversation into another channel: “and doubtless you have sighed over the hopeless affection which the beautiful Jewess cherished for him whose heart was given to the Lady Rowena?”
“I have wept for the interesting and charming Rebecca,” said Agnes, in the natural ingenuousness of her character: “although I am well aware that she is only the heroine of a romance, and I cannot precisely understand wherefore she should have been so much attached to Wilfrid.”
“The description is so life-like—is it not?” asked Mrs. Mortimer.
“I know not—and yet it appears to me as if it were all true—as if I could easily persuade myself that such incidents really occurred, and such sentiments could positively exist,” responded Agnes. “But I must leave you——”
“One word, Miss,” interrupted the old woman. “You say that you could easily persuade yourself that such sentiments as those experienced by Rebecca for Wilfrid, and by Wilfrid and Rowena mutually, could actually exist. Believe me, then, when I assure you that although the incidents of that tale are a fiction, the sentiments are the very reverse—and that what the author denominates love is a passion felt and acknowledged throughout the universe.”
“Yes—the love of a father towards his children, and of children towards their parents,” said Agnes. “Oh! I am well aware that such a blessed feeling animates the mortal breast.”
“And there is another phase of that sentiment,” resumed the old woman, immediately: “or rather, the love which you described, is a feeling—whereas the love which Rebecca experienced for Ivanhoe, is a passion.”