'Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care But for another gives its ease And builds a heaven in hell’s despair.
Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another’s loss of ease, And builds a hell in heaven’s despite. ' —W. BLAKE: Songs of Experience.
Fred Vincy wanted to arrive at Stone Court when Mary could not expect him, and when his uncle was not downstairs: in that case she might be sitting alone in the wainscoted parlor.
He left his horse in the yard to avoid making a noise on the gravel in front, and entered the parlor without other notice than the noise of the door-handle. Mary was in her usual corner, laughing over Mrs.
Piozzi’s recollections of Johnson, and looked up with the fun still in her face. It gradually faded as she saw Fred approach her without speaking, and stand before her with his elbow on the mantel-piece, looking ill. She too was silent, only raising her eyes to him inquiringly.
'Mary,' he began, 'I am a good-for-nothing blackguard. ' 'I should think one of those epithets would do at a time,' said Mary, trying to smile, but feeling alarmed. 'I know you will never think well of me any more. You will think me a liar.
You will think me dishonest. You will think I didn’t care for you, or your father and mother. You always do make the worst of me, I know. ' 'I cannot deny that I shall think all that of you, Fred, if you give me good reasons.
But please to tell me at once what you have done. I would rather know the painful truth than imagine it. ' 'I owed money—a hundred and sixty