Shirley

came in, but she did not look up:
now
she hardly ever gives me a glance. She seems to grow silent too – to
me
she rarely speaks, and, when I am present, she says little to others. In my gloomy moments, I attribute this change to indifference, – aversion, – what not? In my sunny intervals I give it another meaning: I say, were I her equal, I could find in this shyness – coyness, and in that coyness – love. As it is, dare I look for it? What could I do with it, if found?
    This morning I dared, at least, contrive an hour's communion for her and me; I dared not only
wish
– but
will
an interview with her: I dared summon solitude to guard us. Very decidedly I called Henry to the door: without hesitation, I said, ›Go where you will, my boy; but, till I call you, return not here.‹
    Henry, I could see, did not like his dismissal: that boy is young, but a thinker: his meditative eye shines on me strangely sometimes: he half feels what links me to Shirley; he half guesses that there is a dearer delight in the reserve with which I am treated, than in all the endearments he is allowed. The young, lame, half-grown lion would growl at me now and then, because I have tamed his lioness and am her keeper, did not the habit of discipline and the instinct of affection hold him subdued. Go, Henry; you must learn to take your share of the bitter of life with all of Adam's race that have gone before, or will come after you: your destiny can be no exception to the common lot: be grateful that your love is overlooked thus early, before it can claim any affinity to passion: an hour's fret, a pang of envy, suffice to express what you feel: Jealousy hot as the sun above the line, Rage destructive as the tropic storm, the clime of your sensations ignores – as yet.
    I took my usual seat at the desk, quite in my usual way: I am blessed in that power to cover all inward ebullition with outward calm. No one who looks at my slow face can guess the vortex sometimes whirling in my heart, and engulfing thought, and wrecking prudence. Pleasant is it to have the gift to proceed peacefully and powerfully in your course without alarming by one eccentric movement. It was not my present intention to utter one word of love to her, or to reveal one glimpse of the fire in which I wasted. Presumptuous, I never have been; presumptuous, I never will be: rather than even
seem
selfish and interested, I would resolutely rise, gird my loins, part and leave her, and seek, on the other side of the globe, a new life, cold and barren as the rock the salt tide daily washes. My design this morning was to take of her a near scrutiny – to read a line in the page of her heart: before I left, I determined to know
what
I was leaving.
    I had some quills to make into pens: most men's hands would have trembled when their hearts were so stirred; mine went to work steadily, and my voice, when I called it into exercise, was firm.
    ›This day-week you will be alone at Fieldhead, Miss Keeldar.‹
    ›Yes: I rather think my uncle's intention to go is a settled one now.‹
    ›He leaves you dissatisfied.‹
    ›He is not pleased with me.‹
    ›He departs as he came – no better for his journey: this is mortifying.‹
    ›I trust the failure of his plans will take from him all inclination to lay new ones.‹
    ›In his way, Mr. Sympson honestly wished you well. All he has done, or intended to do, he believed to be for the best.‹
    ›You are kind to undertake the defence of a man who has permitted himself to treat you with so much insolence.‹
    ›I never feel shocked at, or bear malice for, what is spoken in character; and most perfectly in character was that vulgar and violent onset against me, when he had quitted you worsted.‹
    ›You cease now to be Henry's tutor?‹
    ›I shall be parted from Henry for a while – (if he and I live we shall meet again somehow, for we love each other) – and be ousted from the bosom of the Sympson family for ever. Happily this change does not leave me stranded: it but hurries into premature execution designs long formed.‹
    ›No change finds you off your guard: I was sure, in your calm way, you would be prepared for sudden mutation. I always think you stand in the world like a solitary but watchful, thoughtful archer in a wood; and the quiver on your shoulder holds more arrows than one; your bow is provided with a second string. Such too is your brother's wont. You two might go forth homeless hunters to the loneliest