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238 rather a bore, which all discontented people must naturally be.

The more conscious I became of this growing antipathy towards me, the more aggressive I became, until I felt that my society and conversation were rather shunned than courted by my acquaintances, and, though I still continued to mingle with them in their assemblies and pastimes, I felt that there was a great falling off in the cordiality with which I had at first been greeted.

A few of my earliest friends still remained staunch in their friendship, and bore with my outbursts of petulance with great good humour, divining their real cause, and being more disposed to pity than to blame me.

One charming young lady in particular, rejoicing in the musical name of Solla, a fair, blue-eyed, compassionate-souled girl, tried to soothe and comfort me, and endeavoured to reconcile me to my fate. She did not indulge in vainglorious boasts about the superiority of the Colymbians to all the rest of the world, but she led me to talk of the life I had formerly led, and entered with pitying interest into all my regrets and longings; and, by the interest she displayed in the accounts I gave of my terrestrial occupations and employments, gradually induced me to take a less gloomy view of my present situation, and even made me hope that eventually I might be restored to my family and my country.

"Do not," she would say, "indulge in vain regrets, but make the best of the situation in which you now find yourself. It will assuredly not be long before the advent of some ship will afford you the opportunity you desire of regaining some region of the earth where you