Poor young Evelina feared much lest
she had offended Thomas, and yet her own maiden decorum had been
offended by him, and she had offended it herself, and she was faint
with shame and distress when she thought of it. How had she been so
bold and shameless as to give him that look at the meeting-house? and
how had he been so cruel as to accost her afterwards? She told
herself she had done right for the maintenance of her own maiden
dignity, and yet she feared lest she had angered him and hurt him.
"Suppose he had been fretted by her coolness?" she thought, and then
a great wave of tender pity went over her heart, and she would almost
have spoken to him of her own accord. But then she would reflect how
he continued to write such beautiful sermons, and prove so clearly
and logically the tenets of the faith; and how could he do that with
a mind in distress? Scarcely could she herself tend the flower-beds
as she should, nor set her embroidery stitches finely and evenly, she
was so ill at ease. It must be that Thomas had not given the matter
an hour's worry, since he continued to do his work so faithfully and
well. And then her own heart would be sorer than ever with the belief
that his was happy and at rest, although she would chide herself for
it.
And yet this young Evelina was a philosopher and an analyst of human
nature in a small way, and she got some slight comfort out of a
shrewd suspicion that the heart of a man might love and suffer on a
somewhat different principle from the heart of a woman.
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