First Part Chapter 20

Formerly I was a person, now I am a chattel. Not a few tears have I
gulped down, alone and far from every one. How gladly would I have
exchanged them for a consoling smile! Why are our destinies so
unequal? Your soul expands in the atmosphere of a lawful passion. For
you, virtue will coincide with pleasure. If you encounter pain, it
will be of your own free choice. Your duty, if you marry Felipe, will
be one with the sweetest, freest indulgence of feeling. Our future is
big with the answer to my question, and I look for it with restless
eagerness.

You love and are adored. Oh! my dear, let this noble romance, the old
subject of our dreams, take full possession of your soul. Womanly
beauty, refined and spiritualized in you, was created by God, for His
own purposes, to charm and to delight. Yes, my sweet, guard well the
secret of your heart, and submit Felipe to those ingenious devices of
ours for testing a lover's metal. Above all, make trial of your own
love, for this is even more important. It is so easy to be misled by
the deceptive glamour of novelty and passion, and by the vision of
happiness.

Alone of the two friends, you remain in your maiden independence; and
I beseech you, dearest, do not risk the irrevocable step of marriage
without some guarantee. It happens sometimes, when two are talking
together, apart from the world, their souls stripped of social
disguise, that a gesture, a word, a look lights up, as by a flash,
some dark abyss. You have courage and strength to tread boldly in
paths where others would be lost.