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106 wonder, for I feel in myself how involuntary is change. I may control my words, tutor my looks, nay, curb my very thoughts; but my feelings are beyond my power. Can I force myself to rejoice, as I once rejoiced, in the least look of Evelyn? Can I bid my heart beat with delight at but the echo of his step? Can I persuade myself, that only to breathe the very air he breathes is happiness, when I know that his presence revolts and chills me? I may be faithful to the letter, but, ah! not to the spirit of my vow. False and ungrateful that I am, I do not love him now! Holy Madonna! must it be in myself that I first find that want of true affection which we are warned to expect in the world? or is it the heartlessness of this great city which thus affects me?"

She looked down, and marked where her large tears had fallen, like rain-drops on her black dress.

"Alas!" exclaimed she, "I have cause to weep—I must weep over my own changefulness, and over the sweetest illusions of my youth. I feel suddenly grown old. Never more will the flowers seem so lovely, or the stars so bright. Never more shall I dwell on Erminia's deep and enduring love for the unhappy Tancred, and think that I too could so have loved. Ah! in what now