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172 have been able to work on me, being possest of every advantage that can make marriage pleasing. But there is an awe which accompanies true affection, and indeed is often fatal to it. It was so, at least, to that the count had for, me, since, had he sooner made an offering of his, heart, perhaps I never would have disposed of mine to Lorenzo. Then might we have all been happy, nor would this dreadful speactacle have distracted my fight, which brings the fatal past for ever present to my tormented mind: but such was the decree of all-disposing Heaven, nor must I dare to murmur.With these words, the swelling tears, in spite of her efforts to the contrary, burst their passage through her eyes, and she was some time before she could recover herself to prosecute her story; but when she did, it was in this manner: My father, resumed she, was perfectly transported at this offer of the count's, and without consulting my inclination in the affair, readily promised I should be his wife, and that the marriage would be solemnized in a few days. How terrible a surprize, therefore, was it to me, when fitting one day in my chamber alone, contemplating on the perfections of my dear Lorenzo, my father entered, and informed me what I have been just now relating! I knew him positive in all his resolutions, and he expressed this on the account of the obligations he had to the count, and the honour our family would receive in an alliance with him, with an unusual warmth, and arbitrary air: I durst not utter the least syllable in oppoisition to what he said, but he saw enough in my countenance to make him know I was extremely dissatisfied at it. What ! cried he, is it with frowns and downcaft eyes that you receive the news of such a blessing? Throw off so perverse a sullenness, and prepare to treat the count, who will be here this night, with that respect and gratitude which his services demand from my family; or resolve to be no more a part of it, but an alien for ever from my name and favour. Nothing can be more certain, had I confessed the impossibility