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178 celestial, would have bestowed upon him one of the greatest indulgences his soul was then capable of receiving, suspended as it was between the separate atmospheres, visible and invisible, by an equilibrium so slight. To see her, to enjoy her presence the short time it was permitted him to live, was again one of the dearest wishes upon which his affections dwelt.

Alas! such a blessing he must forgo! That which in other circumstances would have infused delight into his soul, he must, under this fatal dispensation of Providence, reject,—and reject with all the appearance of harsh and cold indifference! He must conceal from her even that which would tend to vindicate and justify him in her eyes! He must conceal from her the gradual dissolution of his frame! all that would renovate her past sympathy and affection! The task thus begun, however difficult, must be yet consistently pursued; he must be contented to appear unfeeling, ungrateful, selfish, in order to teach Oriana the useful and practical lesson of suppressing those impulses, arising but as exhalations from her natural affections, which, if not duly subjugated to the will of the Supreme, might in the end prove in her destructive to the confirmation of more essential, steady, and lasting principles.

Such being the views by which he was then actuated, if, from flattering incitements operating upon his warm temperament, he had been betrayed from the strict path of rectitude, he retraced it with the