第136章[第2页/共4页]

“My manners must have been in fault,but not intentionally,I assure you.I never meant to deceive you,but my spirits might often lead me wrong.How you must have hated me after that evening?”

“Hate you! I was angry perhaps at first, but my anger soon began to take a proper direction.”

“Oh! do not repeat what I then said.These recollections will not do at all. I assure you that I have long been most heartily ashamed of it.”

She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her former prejudices had been removed.

“I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind.Your retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of innocence. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude which cannot,which ought not,to be repelled.I have been a selfish being all my life,in practice,though not in principle.As a child I was taught what was right,but I was not taught to correct my temper.I was given good principles,but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who,though good themselves(my father,particularly,all that was benevolent and amiable),allowed,encouraged,almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle;to think meanly of all the rest of the world;to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you,dearest,loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you!You taught me a lesson,hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception.You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.”