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 reason opposed her inclination for doing so, by representing the folly, the impropriety of any longer listening to the dictates of a passion which she had cause to believe a hopeless one). But excuse me (she continued) from staying any longer with you; the step which alarmed us approaches, and I should be sorry we were seen together."

"Farewell! then (he exclaimed), most lovely and most beloved; I regret, but cannot murmur at your refusal: may the happiness you deserve be yours, and be not only pure as your virtues, but lasting as your life: may every change in that life, be to raise you to still higher felicity: and when you make that great that important change which will fix its destiny;—when you give the precious hand I now hold to some happy, some highly-favoured mortal, some peculiar favourite of heaven,—oh, may you then meet with a heart as tenderly, as firmly devoted to you as de Sevignie's." These last words were spoken almost in a whisper; and Madeline felt by his hands the tremor of his frame.