Had I been offered a kingdom, however, I could not speak.

I took the unresisting girl in my arms, folded her to my heart, pressed a burning kiss on her cheek, and withdrew.
"You will come back to us, Jack ?" she half whispered, as her hand was reluctantly drawn through my own.
Oh! Anna, it was indeed painful to abandon thy frank and gentle confidence, thy radiant beauty, thy serene affections, and all thy womanly virtues, in order to practise my newly-discovered theory! Long did thy presence haunt me--nay, never did it entirely desert me--putting my constancy to a severe proof, and threatening at each remove to contract the lengthening chain that still bound me to thee, thy fireside, and thy altars! But I triumphed, and went abroad upon the earth with a heart expanding towards all the creatures of God, though thy image was still enshrined in its inmost core, shining in womanly glory, pure, radiant, and without spot, like the floating prism that forms the lustre of the diamond..