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 to the Count de Merville, whose virtues and tenderness rendered her, during his life time, one of the happiest of women, and thus rewarded her for the resolution with which she set about conquering her first attachment from the moment she knew it was improper to be indulged.

"From the chateau de Valdore I repaired to the cottage where my brother had desired to see me. He received me with the utmost affection, and I found he had not deceived me by saying he was ill; it was an illness however which seemed occasioned more by agitation than any bodily complaint; and I afterwards discovered I was not wrong in this opinion.

"Oh! had he confided in me; Oh! had he then opened his heart, divulged its cares, its anxieties, what misery, what horror would he have saved us both from experiencing!

"I had not been above a week with him when I was overwhelmed with sorrow by a