"Why! it is not that she will forget me without it, but that she may have something by her to remind her of me-----" said Julia rapidly, but pausing as the contradiction struck even herself.
"I understand you perfectly, my child," interrupted the aunt, "merely as an unnecessary security, you mean.""To make assurance doubly sure," cried Charles Weston with a laugh."Oh! you laugh, Mr.Weston," said Julia with a little anger; "but I haveoften said, you were incapable of friendship.""Try me!" exclaimed the youth fervently."Do not condemn me without a trial.""How can I?" said Julia, laughing in her turn."You are not a girl." "Can girls then only feel friendship?" inquired Charles, taking the seatwhich Miss Emmerson had relinquished.
"I sometimes think so," said Julia, with her own good-humoured smile."You are too gross--too envious--in short, you never see such friendships between men as exist between women.""Between girls, I will readily admit," returned the youth."But let us examine this question after the manner of the courts--""Nay, if you talk law I shall quit you," interrupted the young lady gaily.
"Certainly one so learned in the subject need not dread a cross- examination," cried the youth, in her own manner.
"Well, proceed," cried the lady."I have driven aunt Margaret from thefield, and you will fare no better, I can assure you.""Men, you say, are too gross to feel a pure friendship; in the first place, please to explain yourself on this point.""Why I mean, that your friendships are generally interested; that it requires services and good offices to support it."{interested = not pure, having an ulterior motive} "While that of women depends on--""Feeling alone."
"But what excites this feeling?" asked Charles with a smile.
"What? why sympathy--and a knowledge of each other's good qualities.""Then you think Miss Miller has more good qualities than Katherine Emmerson," said Weston.
"When did I ever say so?" cried Julia in surprise.
"I infer it from your loving her better, merely," returned the young man with a little of Miss Emmerson's dryness.
"It would be difficult to compare them," said Julia after a moment's pause."Katherine is in the world, and has had an opportunity of showing her merit; that Anna has never enjoyed.Katherine is certainly a most excellent girl, and I like her very much; but there is no reason to think that Anna will not prove as fine a young woman as Katherine, when put to the trial.""Pray," said the young lawyer with great gravity, "how many of these bosom, these confidential friends can a young woman have at the same time?""One, only one--any more than she could have two lovers," cried Julia quickly.
"Why then did you find it necessary to take that one from a set, that was untried in the practice of well-doing, when so excellent a subject as your cousin Katherine offered?""But Anna I know, I feel, is every thing that is good and sincere, and our sympathies drew us together.Katherine I loved naturally.""How naturally?"
"Is it not natural to love your relatives?" said Julia in surprise.
"No," was the brief answer.
"Surely, Charles Weston, you think me a simpleton.Does not every parent love its child by natural instinct?""No: no more than you love any of your amusements from instinct.If the parent was present with a child that he did not know to be his own, would instinct, think you, discover their vicinity?""Certainly not, if they had never met before; but then, as soon as he knew it to be his, he would love it from nature.""It is a complicated question, and one that involves a thousand connected feelings," said Charles."But all love, at least all love of the heart, springs from the causes you mentioned to your aunt--good offices, a dependence on each other, and habit.""Yes, and nature too," said the young lady rather positively; "and I contend, that natural lore, and love from sympathy, are two distinct things.""Very different, I allow," said Charles; "only I very much doubt the durability of that affection which has no better foundation than fancy.""You use such queer terms, Charles, that you do not treat the subject fairly.Calling innate evidence of worth by the name of fancy, is not candid.""Now, indeed, your own terms puzzle me," said Charles, smiling."What is innate evidence of worth?""Why, a conviction that another possesses all that you esteem yourself, and is discovered by congenial feelings and natural sympathies.""Upon my word, Julia, you are quite a casuist on this subject.Does love, then, between the sexes depend on this congenial sympathy and innate evidence?""Now you talk on a subject that I do not understand," said Julia, blushing; and, catching up the highly prized work, she ran to her own room, leaving the young man in a state of mingled admiration and pity.
