I daily felt that it demanded greater exertions, if not far greater abilities, than I could command, to make success at all likely; and then, even if such a result were in store, years, at least, must elapse before it could happen; and where would she then be, and where should I?
Where the ardent affection I now felt and gloried in,--perhaps all the more for its desperate hopelessness,--when the sanguine and buoyant spirit to combat with difficulties which youth suggests, and which, later, manhood refuses, should have passed away?
And even if all these survived the toil and labor of anxious days and painful nights, what of her?
Alas, I now reflected that, although only of my own age, her manner to me had taken all that tone of superiority and patronage which an elder assumes towards one younger, and which, in the spirit of protection it proceeds upon, essentially bars up every inlet to a dearer or warmer feeling,--at least, when the lady plays the former part.

"What, then, is to be done ?" thought I."Forget her ?--but how?
How shall I renounce all my plans, and unweave the web of life I have been spreading around me for many a day, without that one golden thread that lent it more than half its brilliancy and all its attraction?
But then the alternative is even worse, if I encourage expectations and nurture hopes never to be realized.

Well, we meet to-night, after a long and eventful absence; let my future fate be ruled by the results of this meeting.

If Lucy Dashwood does care for me, if I can detect in her manner enough to show me that my affection may meet a return, the whole effort of my life shall be to make her mine; if not, if my own feelings be all that I have to depend upon to extort a reciprocal affection, then shall I take my last look of her, and with it the first and brightest dream of happiness my life has hitherto presented." * * * * * It need not be wondered at if the brilliant _coup d'oeil_ of the ball-room, as I entered, struck me with astonishment, accustomed as I had hitherto been to nothing more magnificent than an evening party of squires and their squiresses or the annual garrison ball at the barracks.

The glare of wax-lights, the well-furnished saloons, the glitter of uniforms, and the blaze of plumed and jewelled dames, with the clang of military music, was a species of enchanted atmosphere which, breathing for the first time, rarely fails to intoxicate.