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SCENES IN INDIA. 
ried vacillation of her step, that she was under the 
influence of a perturbed spirit. 
Her father could not be unobservant of this change 
in his daughter, from the buoyancy of youthful con- 
fidence to the feverish aspect of continual apprehen- 
sion : yet he chose not to notice it. He flattered 
himself that if she sympathised in his disgrace, as 
a child ought to do, according to his notions of filial 
obligation, she would soon become reconciled to what 
only now shocked her tender sensibility because it was 
new to her inexperience, and she had yet to learn 
how to appreciate the true demarcation between real 
good and evil. 
Such was the shallow sophistry of his reflections, 
which he rather desired than believed ; hut his con- 
clusion to these reflections always was, that whatever 
direction his daughter’s feelings might ultimately take, 
he should, nevertheless, force them to succumb to his 
paternal influence. He had, however, yet to learn 
how impossible it sometimes is to warp the human 
heart against its natural bias. It may acquiesce in 
silence and in agony ; hut it will never be really sub- 
dued by tyranny, though it may he silenced, racked, 
and broken. The heart that turns to virtue, like 
steel to the magnet, though it may he violently torn 
from the object to which it clings, will not there- 
fore relinquish its tendency. The impediment once 
removed, it will leap with the accelerated force of 
vehement reaction to the good which it adores, and 
unite with it the closer for the temporary restraint. 
Oppression may crush the most energetic spirit, but 
can never enslave it, when it has once attained that 
