attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other's
society.

This, par parenthèse, will be thought cool language by
persons who entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic
nature of children, and the duty of those charged with their
education to conceive for them an idolatrous devotion: but
I am not writing to flatter paternal egotism, to echo cant,
or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt a
conscientious solicitude for Adèle's welfare and progress, and
a quiet liking to her little self; just as I cherished towards
Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure
in her society proportionate to the tranquil regard she had
for me, and the moderation of her mind and character.

Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further,
that, now and then, when I took a walk by myself in the
grounds; when I went down to the gates and looked through
them along the road; or when, while Adèle played with her
nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the store-room, I
climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic,
and having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered
field and hill, and along dim sky-line—that then I longed for
a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which
might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had
heard of but never seen; that then I desired more of practical
experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my
kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was
here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fair-
fax, and what was good in Adèle; but I believed in the exist-
ence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I
believed in I wished to behold.

Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called
discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my
nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole
relief was to walk along the corridor of the third story, back-
wards and forwards, safe in the silence and solitude of the
spot, and allow my mind's eye to dwell on whatever bright
visions rose before it—and, certainly, they were many and
glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant move-
ment, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with
life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that
was never ended—a tale my imagination created, and narrated
continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling,
that I desired and had not in my actual existence.

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