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tion. Oh! do not stain so fair a name, even with levity; if not for your own sake, for the sake of those who make it their example.

"I will adduce no more arguments, though perhaps I might offer many on the score of Mr. Melville's family, and the connexions they have wished to form for him in his own country, for I must tell you that his situation is much the same in regard to an English lady, that your husband's was in early life towards you. I will leave it to your own heart to decide; but it is my firm opinion that, till Charles can look upon you with different feelings, you ought not to meet again you ought not, in pity to him, in justice to yourself, and in duty to your husband. "Believe me, madam, with every feel

ing of sincere respect,

"Your obedient servant,

"F. WILMOT."

The

The next morning a servant from the hotel of the baroness brought an answer to Mr. Wilmot's letter, and a note addressed to Mr. Melville. Charles tore it open hastily, and glanced his eye from line to line with all the ardour of youthful expectation.

"What does she say, Charles ?" said Mr. Wilmot "What does she wish you to

do?"

"She says," replied Charles, reading— 'Before I knew you, my heart had been given to another, and on examining my own feelings, I find that my affection still remains with one who I believe little de

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serves it;' and she adds- Fly from meforget me; but no-let me hear of your happiness when you can think of me as a sister."

Charles Melville's feelings were of a very mixed nature; he felt glad that his difficulty was at an end; but a deep shade of regret would come over him, when he thought that he had beheld the beautiful,

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the fascinating Adelaide for the last time; there was something too of mortified pride mingled with his disappointment; but mortified pride is sometimes a very serviceable agent, and in the present instance, it made Charles struggle hard against sensations he might otherwise have indulged.

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Well, Charles," said Mr. Wilmot, after his companion had walked up and down the room in silence for some moments, "what do you intend to do?"

"I think," replied Mr. Melville," that we had better leave this place as soon as possible-to-morrow, if it can be done."

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Oh, it can be done certainly," replied Wilmot; "but there is a great deal you have not seen in Paris."

"I have seen quite enough of it," answered Charles hastily, "too much I bèlieve. But you have not read your letter, Wilmot."

"I had forgot," rejoined his companion. "Her letter to you decides it; what she

says:

says to me can be of but little import." He opened it however, and read

"Rue de Castiglione, 15th Feb. 1821. "I have been wrong-very

wrong; your letter, sir, has awakened me to a sense of my own weakness, and also to a knowledge of my own feelings. Oh, Mr. Wilmot! you, who seem so well to know my history, must also know how I loved the baron de S; and if you could have seen my very inmost thoughts, you could not have spoken more directly to my heart, than by asking if I never entertained the idea that some circumstance, unknown to me, has made my husband act as he has done, without losing the affection he bore to me from his earliest youth?' It is too true, notwithstanding all his unkindness, my heart still turns towards him.

"How can I thank you? You have saved me from the brink of ruin. The heedlessness

heedlessness of immorality in which this people live, and the palliations daily made for crime, had gradually lulled me into forgetfulness of right, and I should soon have been overwhelmed in the tide of vice that surrounded me. You have saved me, and it is to you that I shall owe the peace of my future life. The complimentary part of your letter, Heaven knows, I little deserve the reproaches it delicately conveys are but too just; they will nevertheless serve to warn me now, and to guide me in future.

"As to Mr. Melville, amiable and excellent as he is, I hope that what has happened will not make him unhappy; that would be too severe a punishment for my fault. I never saw but one man that I could so much admire and esteem as I do him, and if, by mistaking my own feelings, I have cast the same shadow over his life that has been cast over mine, I shall never forgive myself.

"Receive my thanks for the benefit you

VOL. I.

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have

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