Still, while I paid my court to Astræa, it was not with any intention of publicity, but furtively, as if a private dread hung over us, or as if we thought it pleasanter to vail our feelings from observation. We understood each other in silent looks, which we supposed to be unintelligible to every body else; she seemed to avoid, designedly, all appearance of interest in me, and sometimes played the part to such admiration, as to give me not a few passing pangs of doubt and uneasiness; and I, seeing how scrupulous she was on that point, and not choosing to incur rude jests at her expense, was equally unwilling to betray a feeling which was rendered the more delicious by secrecy. We imagined ourselves secure; but neither of us could have had much worldly sagacity or we must have known that all our caution was fruitless. Basilisks' eyes were around us, and we trod a path beset with serpents. Fortunately we were both looked up to as persons who could not be approached with familiarity; and that preserved us from the open badinage to which others, in similar circumstances, might have been subjected.
Alone, and liberated from this vexatious surveillance, we gave free vent to our thoughts. The suddenness of our new confidence, and the rapidity with which we already shaped its issues, bewildered us by the intensity of the emotions that came crowding for speech and explanation. Astræa sometimes had misgivings, although she never knew how to give them a definite form. One day she said to me, "We are wrong in giving way to this feeling. It is not a love likely to procure us peace. I say this to you because I feel it--perhaps, because I know it; but I confess myself unable to argue upon a question upon which my reason, my whole being is held in suspense. I say so, simply because I ought to say so, and not because I am prepared of myself to act, or even to advise. I am like a leaf in a tempest, and can not guide myself. I yield to the irresistible power that has swept me from the firm land, and deprived me of the strength to regain it."
I fancied that this left me but one course to take, and I replied, "We have pronounced our destiny, Astræa, for good or for evil. We ought to have no choice but to abide by it. If you do not fail in your faith, mine is irrevocable."