grace he may, to-morrow morning. Do not suppose that I think you are in love with me. If I did think so, you may see clearly, in the temper I am in, that I should speak it. But I am not a coxcomb, though I may sometimes seem to be one; and I am incapable of doing your generosity-your charity, (for such it is)—the injustice of such a suspicion. When I tell you that I am more than half in love with you-and have the freedom to tell you, moreover, that I know that declaration will be gratifying to you-I mean only to say this- Eliza Bellarmine, you are a very accomplished, charming woman of eight and twenty."-If I meant to flatter you, I should say four and twenty, but it is a far greater triumph that I can afford to speak the truth. "You have the whitest hand," I would add," that I ever touched, without venturing to kiss it"-a danger which you may recollect I did not trust myself to, even when we last parted. "You have fair, luxuriant, flowing hair; a placid, deep blue eye; a full and graceful form, and a soft voice-sometimes almost sad, and then (do you not know that it is so?) most interesting!—"and, with all these charms to seduce, and one other which is worth them all-that delicacy, that chastity that delicious feminineve ness which fills your whole heart and manner"-I believe that there is no such exact term as "feminineveness" known to the language of England, and I wish there were not some women in the country, who, for their sins, seem quite ignorant of what it means;

With all these attributes to command submission through the world, I say-deny it if you can-you would not be well pleased to have any man, short of an idiot, able to see you with out loving you ;-and under that last character-my own vanity!-you cannot reasonably hope that it will allow me to stand excused.

In truth, accident, and I might almost say my own carelessness of ceremonies, first brought me near you. The common disposition which every man feels to oblige a handsome woman, made me abandon my anger against a man whom custom allowed me to excuse, for he had only injured, and not insulted me. But to your harp; and to your silver voice; and to the long bright evenings in which I wandered among your rose trees and

gazed on your blue eyes; I was indebted, with danger and distress pressing me on every side, for some hours of repose of quietude-which I shall never perhaps forget. And it was little else than the conviction that I saw you happy-tranquil-and secure,-while I was a wayward, restless, outcast ;that, if I did speak, I should but be bringing wretchedness where I found peace-destroying content which I could no more share in than restore ; that your mildness would be terrified by my moody, rugged temper-your very beauty blasted by my adoration:

that my love, like the hot sand-wind of the desert, would have witheredscorched-the lovely flourishing flower that it breathed upon;-that if the sordid regard for self which men dignify with the name of "honourable principle," had saved your little fortune from rapacity and dissipation, still your peace of mind-your calm content-your happiness and hopes, would have been ruined-wasted-wrecked for ever:-if I had not felt that the kite was no fit companion for the dove

the white doe for the wolf-that the hyacinth must die which we plant on the brow of the volcano-and that the ruffian billow, seeming to clasp the gay and gaudy vessel, courts but to stifle her in his embrace-had I not felt all this, and tamed myself down to question and to know it, I should have told you on the very last evening when we met, two truths, which, after all, perhaps I did but ill conceal from you-that I was a consort only for darkness and for danger a beggar-helpless-hopeless-and, but for your love, almost careless ;-but that whatever I might be, I had still a heart; and that, as far as-life or soul-a man might venture, you held the power to tempt -to command me to exertion-and to reward it.

But if you escaped, in the moment of trial, from that peculiar danger, to which the fate that made you a woman made you liable, upon the remote peril -which forms no part of your contract with fortune-I cannot let you come to harm. A moment of passion might have afforded some excuse; while you were present to tempt me, I might have done wrong, and been forgiven. But I must not take time to consider, and then plunder you deliberately, and in cold blood. I talk out of season, and even with a freedom

which I am scarcely warranted to use; but, trust me, that freedom proceeds from no want of respect-no want of reverence, in my most reckless mood, towards you. A thousand pounds gained by a stroke at play-gained so that I neither thanked nor bowed to any human creature for it-could not have raised my spirits as these crow quill lines of yours have done, which life must have left me when I leave to remember and to acknowledge. I tell you all tell it you to tediousness because I know you will rejoice. I was melancholy-sick of existence-drooping-the firmness that I had was but the obstinacy of necessity and despair. I was quitting the world on ill terms -that is, quitting the world in which I had lived, which is the real world to every man-and no one, though I went for ever, seemed to regret or notice my departure. But your letter, I tell you, Eliza, flatters me-gives me a hope nay, a desire-yet to live. One silken cord binds faster than a hundred chains of iron. Tell men only that they are worthy, and the very worst of them will almost wish to be so. The absence of a hundred who should now be near me; the avoidance of all who ought to offer me aid, even although I would not receive it; the cool triumph of those who hate me-more insulting because cold and silent; all this, which I cannot resent-this, which I must not notice, which to none, perhaps, but you dare I own I see-and which eries out more loudly, therefore, for retribution, while soul or memory shall exist, than the deadliest wrong-the broadest, deepest insult, that even human malice (inventive as it is) could openly offer to me; all this does not one-half so strongly excite me to acquire fresh power, and with that power the means of gratitude-(for if it be not gratitude," what synonime, I ask then, have we for revenge?)-as the thought that there is still one being upon earth-one valuable, virtu ous, lovely one-who would weep perhaps for the ruin of Charles Edwards, and, ill as he is, still thinks him worth preserving.

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And since your good report, therefore, is so precious in my eye, you will not be angry if I refuse to do the thing which must deprive me of it? For the trifling service I ever afforded Captain B, it is not worth remembrance -far less such a return as, to soothe my

impatience of obligation, you would affix to it. Trust me, it is not pride which makes me shun your offer; for the proudest event of my life I take to be the having received it. You do me injustice if you but think I should be ashamed of being indebted to Eliza Bellarmine-of calling her my benefactress-of saying-I may not say that she is "my mistress," but I may profess that I am her slave. But, frankly, a man ought not to sit down contented, after having ruined his fortunes at six-and-twenty. I can pardon his having destroyed his estate at that age; but not his wanting virtue to endeavour to retrieve it. And, besides, there is another point:A man has no right to put forth desperate principles (as I have done) for the conduct of all the world; and then, in his own necessity, to shrink back, like a coward, from proceeding upon them.

You are poor, Eliza-rich every way as compared with me,-but it is that you have little, I have nothing. I could not lose sight of this truth-not of your being poor-for all the world; because it multiplies a hundred fold, nay, it forms, the triumph that I now enjoy. She who flings away the whole rental of a manor upon the fashion of a new necklace or a new carriage, might lavish half as much upon such a runagate as I am, and think little of him after. She gets rid merely of that which is superfluous-nay, of that which she has a pleasure to divest herself of; and which may just as well serve the gratification of one passing whim as of another. But you, Eliza

my pride cannot bate an ace of the recollection-you would deny yourself that which you want. What a hundred little extravagances-nay, I do them wrong, for they are but elegancies→→→ the very particular attractions which so few female hearts can resist,-how many flowers, feathers, balls, and baubles, were resigned altogether in that little slip of paper, which, almost with tears shed, and with a thousand blessings written on it, I now return to you!

And could I now let you make such a sacrifice? Come-you have a noble heart, as well as a gentle and a gene rous one! You would know the worthless, although you might aid the worthless you would pardon weakness, but I am sure you must detect it-could

I meet your eye, Eliza-ask yourself if I could-and say that I was come to accept your offer? It would not do. Admit that it would not. And, besides, with what you offer, I should never be content. At a moment like this, one fury ought to neutralize another. I am fighting up against a desperate and rapidly approaching crisis; and yet, if, even while I write to you, I forget the danger that immediately impends, why then, what if I were to be placed near you-with you-seeing you daily-finding an opiate in your fascinations which would lull me beyond the sense of my degraded condition-what would be my situation then? It will be long, Eliza, before we meet-if we are ever to meet again. I do not presume, for my words are uttered to none but yourself; and it is but tearing a sheet of paper, and the record of them will have passed for ever ;-but-Eliza Bellarmine-such arrangement could lead but to one termination.

Now, you merit better than to become the wife-the unhappy, perhaps the neglected, wife of a penniless, restless, discontented, spendthrift. Of all the women I have ever known, the fancy (or the frenzy) of a moment past, you are one whom I would select to pass a calm, retired life of love and safety with; but such a life is not the life that I, at least with my present feelings, should ever be able to endure. I have figured such a life to myself a thousand times in all its bearings; of all my day-dreams, its quietness has been the most delicious; but I never could make even myself believe that it would be lasting. There was always some after-arrangement-some episode, for which I hated, and almost despised myself, but which was just as certain, nevertheless, as all the fairer features of the picture. There are hearts to which present excitation-even although it be that of torture-is the only vital principle. The day-dream of the opium-chewer is death; but it would be worse than death to him to live without it. Then, if I have not strength enough to act honestly in the face of temptation, I will at least have sufficient virtue to shun temptation. I believe in my soul, that, if I had my father's estate, and Heaven defend that, at the price of desiring his death, I should have it!-I believe, if I had even a pro

spect, no power on earth could keep me twenty-four hours from your presence; but, standing as I do-with nothing but suffering before me, (asking you to partake of it.)-I will find self-denial enough to avoid it.

So now-blessings, ten thousand times redoubled, fall upon you. Take his thanks, who has nothing else but thanks, and your own bounty back again, to give; and keep for my sake the little remembrance that I enclose. I give it to you as it was given two years since to me. It was the last possession of a poor Polish officer-perhaps the precious token of some beauteous mistress. He gave it me in the hour when he was dying-it is now my last possession, Eliza-and, in my turn, I give it now to you.

For what shall be my fate, dearest, be under no alarm. In my existence, I never felt more confidence than I feel at this moment. Helpless, is it said I am?-Never!-I have health, youth, strength,—I have the possession even now that has turned peasants into kings. Helpless! I am glad there be some that think me so-I would not change estates even now with half the peerage-looking at your letter, not with the whole. For does not that show that I am not helpless? Trust me, I never in my life knew a man complain, who did not richly deserve all that he complained of. Fortune-you shall see it—has not disinherited me; she has but cast my patrimony forth among strangers, that I may show my courage and activity in redeeming it.

And so, once more, farewell! I will not tell you of my purpose-not even as far as I can guess at it; the deed, whatever it is, shall prosper; and you, Eliza, afterwards, shall applaud it. In the first hour that I thrive, look to be troubled with me ; and you must accuse yourself for the encumbrance. There may come yet a day-there shall come one-when, in some golden summer's evening, when the pale twilight star is shining brightly, and the west wind whispers through the leaves, as though unwilling to disturb their silence when the first moonbeams just begin to steal upon the river and the mountain, and daylight dies so sweetly and serenely, that, could our last hour pass thus, sure we should court, not shun, its coming; in some hour like this, I will