High-toned, and pure-minded, tender, and confiding as a child, yet with a sweet womanly pride, and withal a dash of quiet humor, Edla Fane kept me vacillating near her for a many months. At one time feeling as though I could fall at her feet and worship her, at another fearing I had expressed too much, and withdrawing in cold reserve.
One evening a cold mood came over me; I feared I had committed myself in my ardent protestations to Edla, and now spoke with the calmness of friendship or platonic affection. She listened with a slight curve of her expressive lip, and assented to my proposal of affectionate friendship so readily, that my self-love was aroused, and with characteristic variableness my feelings gained immediate force again. But Edla remained unmoved. The next day I received the following lines in a blank envelope.
You say that you love me, yet are not a lover; As you know not yourself what it is you intend; And right sorry are you, I have chanced to discover, That you’re _less_ than a _lover_, and _more_ than a _friend_! For you know you’re a ranger, And think there is danger, That when you are weary, and wish to depart, _I_, believing you true, May have learned to love you, And you’ll leave me all lonely, without any heart!
You have cautioned me well, and have done but your duty; The proverb says truly, “Forearmed, when forewarned,” And though I can boast not of wealth or of beauty, I yield not one feeling, I think would be scorned. When a lover I find Who _knows his own mind_! I will give up my heart in return for his vow; I must have _all_ or _none_, Must be wooed to be won— And now I’ll advise _you_, if you will allow.
You at once must restrain all expression of feeling, Not only of words, but of glances and sighs, Lest by some odd mischance the strange secret revealing, Your friendship should prove to be—“love in disguise!” Remember, take care, I bid you beware, For Cupid’s a sly, little mischievous elf, When you think your heart free He may bind it to me, And make you prove constant in spite of yourself.
Then, when I have plighted my vows to another, You will sue for one glimpse of old feeling in vain; For when once the bright flame of affection you smother, You never can kindle its brilliance again; I’ll turn proudly away, And will calmly say nay, (While I look on you coldly, not seeming to see,) I esteem, and admire, _That_ is all you desire— Think well of me always, but never love me!