The Crystal Fount, for (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 Excerpt: ...now they had reached the entrance, she recognised the arms of her house--Almstein's equipage--it was he. She hastened out, trembling with pleasure and surprise; he met her in the hall with outspread arms. His overflowing feeling had made him speechless, and he pressed her to his heart. It was only when quietly seated together in the drawing-room, and the first tumult of their joy was over, that they had found words to express how each had wanted the other; how they had longed for one another; how impossible Adolph had found it to live longer without her. Gradually, however, he became more silent; he seemed abstracted, lost in one absorbing thought. Henrietta observed it, and affectionately asked him the reason. "I have an important question to ask you," he at length began, "and I must entreat you to answer me candidly and with the strictest truth." She promised, and he continued. "Why have you twice so decidedly refused my hand 1 What was the cause of your former dislike towards me V "Dislike?" repeated Henrietta, blushing, and she cast down her eyes, but said no more. The captain pressed the question upon her; at last she confessed, that the marked difference between her appearance and his, his first hopes of her beautiful sister, her dread of the world's derision, and his future repentance had impelled her to it. Almstein listened to her silently and seriously. "You think then," he said after a pause, "that perfect equality of circumstances is indispensable to a happy marriage? That neither should make the least sacrifice to the other, neither excel the other in the most unimportant points 1 Do you really think this, my cousin 1" Almstein's manner was very serious. At first she was silent--she saw the...