But
who gives them heed? Who makes them the rule of his conduct?
We might wonder less at the blind infatuation with which so many
press onward in a course that all the wisdom of the past, as well as
all the reason of the present, condemns, if it were possible to rub
out our actions, as a child rubs from his slate a wrong sum, and
begin the work of life over again. But this cannot be. We weave
hourly the web that is to bind us in the future. Our to-days hold
the fate of our to-morrows. What we do is done for ever, and in some
degree will affect us throughout infinite ages.
"Poor Delia Floyd!" My thought had turned to her as I lay awake,
long after the small hours of the morning, busy with incidents and
reflections which had completely banished sleep from my eyes. In the
strong pity of my heart, I spoke the words aloud.
"What of her?" said Constance, in a tone of surprise. And so
intruding thought had kept her awake also!
"Nothing more than usual," I answered. "But I cannot sleep for
thinking of her unhappy state, and what she might have been, if
obeying her own heart's right impulses, and the reason God gave her,
she had accepted a true man, instead of a specious villain for her
husband.
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