"Oh, you do not understand it, Julia. You do not know, then, that
you are the daughter of a rich merchant--the only daughter--that
you have servants to wait on you, and a carriage at command--that
you can wear fine silks, and have all things that money can buy,
and a rich man's daughter desire. You don't know these things,
Julia, eh?"
"Yes, Edward, I hear you say so now, and I hear mamma often say
the same things; but still I don't see--"
"You don't see why that should make a difference between yourself
and your poor cousin, eh? Well, but it does; and though you don't
see it now, yet it will not be very long before you will see, and
understand it, and act upon it, too, as promptly as the wisest
among them. Don't you know that I am the object of your father's
charity--that his bounty feeds me--and that it would not be seemly
that the world should behold me on a familiar footing of equality
or intimacy with the daughter of my benefactor--my patron--without
whom I should probably starve, or be a common beggar upon the
highway?"
"But father would not suffer that, Edward."
"Oh, no! no!--he would not suffer it, Julia, simply because his own
pride and name would feel the shame and disgrace of such a thing.
But though he would keep me from beggary and the highway, Julia,
neither he nor your mother would spend a sixpence or make an effort
to save my feelings from pain and misery. They protect me from the
scorn of others, but they use me for their own."
The girl hung her head in silence.
"And you, too," I added--"the time will come when you. too, Julia,
will shrink as promptly as themselves from being seen with your
poor relation. You--"
"No! no! Edward--how can you think of such a thing?" she replied
with girlish chiding.
"Think it!--I know it! The time will soon be here. But--obey your
mother, Julia. Go! leave me now. Begin, once the lesson which,
before many days, you will find it very easy to learn."
This was all very manly, so I fancied at the time; and then
blind with the perverse heart which boiled within me, I felt not
the wantonness of my mood, and heeded not the bitter pain which I
occasioned to her gentle bosom. Her little hand grasped mine, her
warm tears fell upon it; but I flung away from her grasp, and left
her to those childish meditations which I had made sufficiently
mournful.