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    TkuAMnm * 588

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    And Percy was in a dream , or rather a strong and new reality was rapidly : creating around him . His murtoiu * ed no' was a true " answer to his mother ' s question , but in its tone might be detected A deeper truth—the conviction that was coming upon him > that > though his love had remained untold , there it was ,

    making his pulses throb , his cheek glow ,, his heart beat against his breast , to fly to her who , for the first time , he discovered that he loved ; discovered it too in one of those strongly painful circumstances that sometimes elicit a truth suddenly , which the common course of events might have taken a much longer period to bring to light . Mrs . Fenton was at ease ; all fear was over . Her reliance rested securely on two points in Percy ' s character- ^—his high notion of filial obedience , and his belief that in a total

    abnegation of self consisted the extent of human virtue;—a beautiful error in its unselfishness , but one of the most fatal into which a being of strong sensibility can fall . How often , as in the case of Mrs . Fenton and her son , have hopes been blasted , affections killed , the whole bloom and charm of a life sacrificed ! and to what ?—ambition , desire of possession ,

    grasping after distinction , and many another cause , less unworthy , but equally mischievous , which , however it might assume the guise of parental love , was a cheat—was the love of its own wish , rather than a child ' s true happiness . The personal affections are a right with which no parent should interfere ; they are the strongest stimulus to human action ; and , as such , though everything may and should be done to direct them , their complete destruction is a crime which should lie heavily on every parent ' s conscience . We would rather see a child a pauper in a parish workhouse , beggared by adventitious circumstances , the result , as it is called , of ' a bad match / than have the sin upon our souls of having made a heart bankrupt in its most precious wealth—its affections . What had been Mrs . Fenton ' s course of action ? Strong as was her love for her son—devoted as had been every thought , every feeling , every act of her life , to what she called his welfare—she had allowed his intercourse with Flora , not

    only regardless of what might be the consequence to her , reckless of the suffering which the entanglement of her feeling might entail upon her , but now was about to devote the son she had so much loved—a martyr to his own heroic but mistaken sense of duty—a victim to his earnest , but unreasoning , self-devotion .

    After Percy ' s * No , ' Mrs . Fenton again broke silence . ' Percy , you have made your mother happy ; ' and she held out her hand , into-which Percy ' s found its way by a mechanical impulse . She wAs too happy in the assurance he had given her to feel annoyance at the coldness of the act , and continued : ' You know well I would not have you forfeit a pledge and dishonour your faith , though the breaking of my heart might be the result o £ its fulfilment . I am sorry that Mr . Brandon should be so circum-

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• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1835, page 583, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2649/page/19/