Page:Modern literature (1804 Volume 2).djvu/337

 *nity occurred of making any enquiry that evening; she went home with her father and uncle, and immediately retired to her room, and brooding over the idea that Hamilton was distressed upon her account, she turned her imagination through the wild region of possibility, and coming to plausibilities, made a conjecture, not wide of the truth, that some attempt had been made in the public papers, in some way or other, unfavourable to her. She was conscious of no act or thought that could expose her to reproach; what could be the motive or cause of such an attempt? Bewildered in her labyrinth of possibilities, where she had no probable clue, she tormented herself with conjuring up successive phantoms of evil, and at last concluded that some rival was endeavouring to part her and her beloved Hamilton. Of the Countess of Cock