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 for her contempt; it has broken asunder those chains her beauty had forged to hold my heart iuin [sic] bondage.”

“And what use does your Lordship mean to make of this discovery?” inquired Bremere.

“My resolutions, Charles,” returned Belfont, “and your ideas, I will venture to say, are of an opposite nature. You perhaps imagine that I shall return to the fashionable world; refute the opinions it entertains of my distress, and reproach it for its ingratitude.”

“What else can you purpose?” asked Bremere,

“Convinced of your Lordship’s integrity,” replied Belfont, “I shall not hesitate to repose in your breast the secret of my resolves. The sudden death of my uncle,” continued he, “has given me an ample fortune; the enjoyments of which, in the vulgar opinion of mankind, ensures the constant possession of happiness. Alas; how mistaken is such a notion! It is true my every wish is gratified but one. You smile, Charles, and already anticipate, that yet unaccomplished wish. Yes! my friend, the society of a virtuous female, whose bosom is awake to the soft touches of humanity, and who will not, to the offspring of distress, refuse the tributary sigh of pity, nor from the needy sufferer withold the sacred boon of charity, is what I am now in search of. In the higher circles of life,” added he, “my pursuit, has proved abortive, and