O Miss Darnel! when I remember that dear, that melancholy moment."-- So saying he gently touched her hand, in order to press it to his lips, and perceived on her finger the very individual ring which he had presented in her mother's presence, as an interchanged testimony of plighted faith.

Starting at the well-known object, the sight of which conjured up a strange confusion of ideas, "This," said he, "was once the pledge of something still more cordial than esteem." Aurelia, blushing at this remark, while her eyes lightened with unusual vivacity, replied, in a severer tone, "Sir, you best know how it lost its original signification."-- "By Heaven! I do not, madam!" exclaimed our adventurer.

"With me it was ever held a sacred idea throned within my heart, cherished with such fervency of regard, with such reverence of affection, as the devout anchorite more unreasonably pays to those sainted reliques that constitute the object of his adoration."-- "And, like those reliques," answered Miss Darnel, "I have been insensible of my votary's devotion.

A saint I must have been, or something more, to know the sentiments of your heart by inspiration." "Did I forbear," said he, "to express, to repeat, to enforce the dictates of the purest passion that ever warmed the human breast, until I was denied access, and formally discarded by that cruel dismission ?"--"I must beg your pardon, sir," cried Aurelia, interrupting him hastily, "I know not what you mean."-- "That fatal sentence," said he, "if not pronounced by your own lips, at least written by your own fair hand, which drove me out an exile for ever from the paradise of your affection."-- "I would not," she replied, "do Sir Launcelot Greaves the injury to suppose him capable of imposition; but you talk of things to which I am an utter stranger.

I have a right, sir, to demand of your honour, that you will not impute to me your breaking off a connexion, which--I would--rather wish--had never"-- --"Heaven and earth! what do I hear ?" cried our impatient knight; "have I not the baleful letter to produce?
What else but Miss Darnel's explicit and express declaration could have destroyed the sweetest hope that ever cheered my soul; could have obliged me to resign all claim to that felicity for which alone I wished to live; could have filled my bosom with unutterable sorrow and despair; could have even divested me of reason, and driven me from the society of men, a poor, forlorn, wandering lunatic, such as you see me now prostrate at your feet; all the blossoms of my youth withered, all the honours of my family decayed ?" Aurelia looking wishfully at her lover, "Sir," said she, "you overwhelm me with amazement and anxiety! you are imposed upon, if you have received any such letter.