‘ “I am glad I know my keeper, and am used to him. Only his voice will I follow; only his hand shall manage me; only at his feet will I response.”
‘I took her back to her seat, and sat down by her side; I wanted to hear her speak again: I could never have enough of her voice and her words.
‘ “How much do you love me?” I asked.
‘ “Ah, you know: I will not gratify you; I will not flatter.”
‘ “I don’t know half enough; my heart craves to be fed. If you knew how hungry and ferocious it is, you would hasten to stay it with a kind word or two.”
‘ “Poor Tartar!” said she, touching and patting my hand: “poor fellow! stalwart friend! Shirley’s pet and favourite, lie down!”
‘ “But I will not lie down till I am fed with one sweet word.”
‘And at last she gave it.
‘ “Dear Louis, be faithful to me—never leave me. I don’t care for life, unless I may pass it at your side.”
‘ “Something more.”
‘She gave me a change: it was not her way to offer the same dish twice.
‘ “Sir,” she said, starting up, “at your peril you ever again name such sordid things as money, or poverty, or inequality! It will be absolutely dangerous to torment me with these maddening scruples. I defy you to do it.”
‘My face grew hot. I did once more wish I were not so poor or she were not so rich. She saw the transient misery; and then, indeed, she caressed me. Blent with torment, I experienced rapture.
‘ “Mr. Moore,” said she, looking up with a sweet, open, earnest countenance, “teach me and help me to be good. I do not ask you to take off my shoulders all the cares and duties of property; but I ask you to share the burden, and to show me how to sustain my part well. Your judgment is well balanced; your heart is kind; your principles are sound. I know you are wise; I feel you are benevolent; I believe you are conscientious. Be my companion through life; be my guide where I am ignorant; be my master where I am faulty; be my friend always!”
‘ “So help me God, I will!” ’
Yet again, a passage from the blank book, if you like, reader; if you don’t like it, pass it over:
‘The Sympsons are gone; but not before discovery and explanation. My manner must have betrayed something, or my looks: I was quiet, but I forgot to be guarded sometimes. I stayed longer in the room than usual; I could not bear to be out of her presence; I returned to it, and basked in it, like Tartar in the sun. If she left the oak-parlour, instinctively I rose, and left it too. She chid me for this procedure more than once: I did it with a vague, blundering idea of getting a word with her in the hall or elsewhere. Yesterday, towards dusk, I had her to myself for five minutes by the hall fire. We stood side by side; she was railing at me, and I was enjoying the sound of her voice: the young ladies passed, and looked at us; we did not separate. Ere long they repassed, and again looked. Mrs. Sympson came; we did not move: Mr. Sympson opened the dining-room door; Shirley flashed him back full payment for his spying gaze: she curled her lip, and tossed her tresses. The glance she gave was at once explanatory and defiant; it said: “I like Mr. Moore’s society, and I dare you to find fault with my taste.”