“A week was spent in this thoughtless manner, when, returning very late to the hotel in which I had lodged ever since my arrival, I was knocked down in a private street, and hurried, in a state of insensibility, into a coach, which brought me hither, and I only recovered my senses to be treated like one who had lost them.  My keepers are deaf to my remonstrances and enquiries, yet assure me that my confinement shall not last long.  Still I cannot guess, though I weary myself with conjectures, why I am confined, or in what part of England this house is situated.  I imagine sometimes that I hear the sea roar, and wished myself again on the Atlantic, till I had a glimpse of you."*

A few moments were only allowed to Maria to comment on this narrative, when Darnford left her to her own thoughts, to the “never ending, still beginning,” task of weighing his words, recollecting his tones of voice, and feeling them reverberate on her heart.

* The introduction of Darnford as the deliverer of Maria in a former instance, appears to have been an after-thought of the author.  This has occasioned the omission of any allusion to that circumstance in the preceding narration.  Editor. [Godwin’s note]

CHAPTER 4

Pity, and the forlorn seriousness of adversity, have both been considered as dispositions favourable to love, while satirical writers have attributed the propensity to the relaxing effect of idleness; what chance then had Maria of escaping, when pity, sorrow, and solitude all conspired to soften her mind, and nourish romantic wishes, and, from a natural progress, romantic expectations?

Maria was six-and-twenty.  But, such was the native soundness of her constitution, that time had only given to her countenance the character of her mind.  Revolving thought, and exercised affections had banished some of the playful graces of innocence, producing insensibly that irregularity of features which the struggles of the understanding to trace or govern the strong emotions of the heart, are wont to imprint on the yielding mass.  Grief and care had mellowed, without obscuring, the bright tints of youth, and the thoughtfulness which resided on her brow did not take from the feminine softness of her features; nay, such was the sensibility which often mantled over it, that she frequently appeared, like a large proportion of her sex, only born to feel; and the activity of her well-proportioned, and even almost voluptuous figure, inspired the idea of strength of mind, rather than of body.  There was a simplicity sometimes indeed in her manner, which bordered on infantine ingenuousness, that led people of common discernment to underrate her talents, and smile at the flights of her imagination.  But those who could not comprehend the delicacy of her sentiments, were attached by her unfailing sympathy, so that she was very generally beloved by characters of very different descriptions; still, she was too much under the influence of an ardent imagination to adhere to common rules.