“How good, how amiable it is of Julia,” thought Edmund, “to be so kind to a friendless stranger!”
“Who could be unkind to Edmund!” thought Julia. “The gentleness of his manners win upon one so; the expression of his countenance is so interesting; his very smile is so nearly allied to melancholy that any one, with the least feeling, must dread the idea of causing him a moment’s pain.”
He, for his part, could not long deceive himself as to the nature of his own sentiments; but he thought there was no harm in cherishing them, while he could flatter himself that because he was not declaring he was concealing them. Or, had he thought otherwise, the temptation was, perhaps, too strong to be resisted.
He could not be blind to the pleasure with which Julia received every little mark of silent attention from him, and the blissful sensation which glowed within his breast at such moments was not to be foregone at the faint instigations of a judgment bewildered by the influence of an absorbing passion. Yet he certainly fancied, that it was only his own futurity he was sacrificing for a dream of present felicity. Whatever he sometimes _felt_ Julia’s _feelings_ to be, he undoubtedly always _thought_ them the generous friendship she had promised him should ever be his; and he thus reasoned with himself, that, as she had distinctly permitted him to feel and declare a brother’s affection for her, it was to be expected, that she would receive with complacency those unpretending marks of regard which belong peculiarly to friendship. And, as Frances was often even more openly kind in her manner to him, all was, of course, as it should be. As to himself—it was no matter about himself! he even felt a kind of satisfaction in thinking, that when he could no longer enjoy the delirium of happiness under the dominion of which he now existed—when the hour of separation must come—why, then his misery should be as wild, as unlimited as his felicity was now! still would he watch for the dangerous smile, and when its light began to dawn on the features of Julia, he would have opened his heart to its intoxicating influence, had instantaneous death been the immediate and foreseen consequence. She often observed a shade of melancholy on the brow of Edmund, but she also observed that it gave way to sunny joy when a look, a word, or a smile of hers was directed towards him. To possess the power of giving happiness in a manner so easy and so innocent, to one for whom she did not deny that she had, all her life, had a very tender sisterly affection; to possess such a power and not to use it was not in the affectionate nature of Julia. She did exert it every day, every hour, and when she saw Edmund’s countenance light up with a beam caught from her smile, she felt a degree of pleasure that sometimes startled her; but she never ventured to ask herself whether or not all this was to lead to any ultimate results. Sometimes indeed, she recollected, with a sensation of panic, that Edmund must again leave Lodore House, must again return to the sea, to hardships, to dangers; and then she would strive to banish the scaring thoughts that crowded in upon her, but the next time she addressed Edmund, there would be a tenderness in the accents of her voice, a something indefinable in the expression of her eyes, that would shake his whole soul to its foundation, bewilder his every thought, undo his every resolve, and place him, passive as it were, in the hands of a fate, at once too overwhelming and too delightful to be resisted.
