234 THE SMUGGLER. 



but also when the softer bands are loosened, which the waking 

 spirit places upon unavailing regrets and aspirations all in vain ; 

 in those hours, when memory, and imagination, and feeling 

 are awake, and when judgment, and reason, and resolution 

 are all buried in slumber. 



Can it be well for us thus to check the expression of all the 

 deeper feelings of the heart, to shut out all external sympa- 

 thies, to lock within the prison of the heart its brightest trea- 

 sures like the miser's gold, and only to give up to them the 

 hours of solitude and of slumber ? I know not ; and the ques- 

 tion, perhaps, is a difficult one to solve: but such, however, 

 are the general rules of society, and to its rules we are slaves 

 and bondsmen. 



It was to her own chamber that Edith Croyland usually 

 carried her griefs and memories ; and even in the house of her 

 uncle, though she was aware how deeply he loved her, she 

 could not, or she would not, venture to speak of her sensa- 

 tions as they really arose. 



On the eventful day of young Radford's quarrel with Sir 

 Edward Digby, Edith retired at the sober hour at which the 

 whole household of Mr. Croylaud usually sought repose; but 

 there, for a considerable time, she meditated as she had often 

 meditated before, on the brief intelligence she had received on 

 the preceding day. " He is living," she said to herself; "he 

 is in England, and yet he seeks me not I But my sister says 

 he loves me still! It is strange; it is very strange! He must 

 have greatly changed. So eager, so impetuous as he used to 

 be, to become timid, cautious, reserved : never to write ; never 

 to send. And yet why should I blame him? What has he 

 not met with from mine, if not from me? What has his love 

 brought upon himself and his? The ruin of his father, a 

 parent's suffering and death, the destruction of his own best 

 prospects, a life of toil and danger, and expulsion from the 

 scenes in which his bright and early days were spent! Why 

 should I wonder that he does not come back to a spot where 

 every object must be hateful to him? Why should I wonder 

 that he does not seek me, whose image can never be separated 

 from all that is painful and distressing to him in memory? 

 Poor Henry! Oh! that I could cheer him, and wipe away 

 the dark and gloomy recollections of the past." 



Such were some of her thoughts ere she lay down to rest; 



