As I looked at her dog, she drew
him towards her with the string. - "Thou shalt not leave me,
Sylvio," said she. I look'd in Maria's eyes and saw she was
thinking more of her father than of her lover, or her little goat;
for, as she utter'd them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.
I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they
fell, with my handkerchief. - I then steep'd it in my own, - and then
in hers, - and then in mine, - and then I wip'd hers again; - and as I
did it, I felt such undescribable emotions within me, as I am sure
could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter and
motion.
I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which
materialists have pester'd the world ever convince me to the
contrary.
MARIA.
When Maria had come a little to herself, I ask'd her if she
remembered a pale thin person of a man, who had sat down betwixt
her and her goat about two years before? She said she was
unsettled much at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts:
