During this first visit, Hannah Tharston indulged without
reserve, io the eatlsloction which it gave to her. She nivrays
found it far more agreeahle to Ukc thou to dislike. Wood-
bury's lack of that enthusiasm which in her sonl was an erar
burning and mounting fire — ^his cold, dispafisionatc povrer of
judgment — his tolerance of what she considered perverted
liabita of the most reprehensible character, and bia bdifliersno*
to those wants and wrongs of the race which continually appeal*
ed to the Reformer's aid, had at firnt given her th<} impresaioit
that the basis of his oharacter was hard and selliKli. She had
since luodlGod this view, granting him the high attrihuto* of
truth and charity ; she had witnessed the manifestation of bis
pbyainal and moral conrage ; but his individuality etill pra-
served a cold, statuesque beauty. His mastery over himsdf^
she supposed, extendud to his in(«I]ectu^ passions and his
affectJona. He wonid only be swayed by them so far aa
seemed to htm rational and convenient.
His worde to her mother recalled to hei mind, she knew
not why, the description of her own fiither's death. It was
possible that an equal capacity for paaaion might here again he
hidden under a oold, immovable manner. She had sounded,
tolerably well, the natnrm of th« men of whom she bad seen
most, during the past mx or eight years, ord lind found that
their own noreserved proteatationa of feeling were the mcasare
of their capacity to feel. There wns no necessity, indaed, to
throw a plummet into their stream*, for they had egou^calljr
set up their own Nilometunt, and Die doptli nf tha oiUTenl

d inOiontwl at tho ntrboo. She began to suapeut, now, that



A BTOKT OF AUKUICAK LIFE.
