“‘But why, O, why, Beatrice,’ I said for the first time—‘why not more?’
“‘Because our natures are too much alike. Both too impulsive—too sensitive—too imaginative. Life, and its trials, and associations are real. I need something to oppose the blast—we should both bend one way. The fire that raged so fiercely could but soon die out, or consume all that fed it. Do you not see this?’
“Yes, I knew, she was true, she was right; I have felt it a hundred times since, but then I only felt all I had lost—all I was so near possessing—that all hope was past. I knew it by her tone, her manner, the gentle pressure of her hand. I knew her self-control must be the effect of an irrevocable judgment—it was a mood foreign to her, and could not be long sustained.
“What more wild words I said, I can easily imagine, and her flushed cheek told me the struggle that they caused within; but I had no right thus to act upon her generous confession, and at length I listened to her gentle reasoning.
“‘If I ever marry,’ she said, ‘it must be one whose judgment is not controlled by his feelings, who can understand, yet not share, in these wild moods you would only encourage. It must be strength of will and tenderness combined that can control me. You need repose as much as I. We are friends you know—I read your heart better than you can yourself—your wife must also be firm and gentle. I should in the end only make you miserable.’”
“Well,” I said, as St. Julian paused in apparent forgetfulness of my presence.
“Well, as you say—I did not cease to hope from her impulsive moods until I knew that she was to be married. When she found it was so, she avoided me; it was base to presume on her generous frankness.”
“So she is married?”
“To a man others say the very reverse of herself—but I understand it, and believe her to be happy—and I took her advice, at length, and sought out a Jemima! no, my Minny is more like Mrs. Caxton of the two, and is far too good a wife for me. Beatrice would have made me miserable, I believe.”
I smiled as he settled himself complacently in the lounging chair from which he had risen, and returned to a quiet contemplation of the fire, the very picture of the contented husband, after all that utterance of enthusiastic feeling—but when Mrs. St. Julian came quietly into the room, a few moments after, with her pretty basket of needle-work, and her cheerful, household face, I could not but think that my friend was right after all in his choice, and that I, too, after a few more hesitating years, might be glad to find myself settled to such a Jemima.