The pang which it left behind
was one of humility and remorse. "O how wicked and proud I was about
Arthur," she thought, "how self-confident and unforgiving! I never
forgave from my heart this poor girl, who was fond of him, or him for
encouraging her love; and I have been more guilty than she, poor,
little artless creature! I, professing to love one man, could listen
to another only too eagerly; and would not pardon the change of
feelings in Arthur, while I myself was changing and unfaithful." And
so humiliating herself, and acknowledging her weakness, the poor girl
sought for strength and refuge in the manner in which she had been
accustomed to look for them.
She had done no wrong: but there are some folks who suffer for a fault
ever so trifling as much as others whose stout consciences can walk
under crimes of almost any weight; and poor Laura chose to fancy that
she had acted in this delicate juncture of her life as a very great
criminal. She determined that she had done Pen a great injury by
withdrawing that love which, privately in her mother's hearing, she
had bestowed upon him; that she had been ungrateful to her dead
benefactress by ever allowing herself to think of another or of
violating her promise; and that, considering her own enormous crimes,
she ought to be very gentle in judging those of others, whose
temptations were much greater, very likely; and whose motives she
could not understand.
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