Memoirs of Emma Courtney

nce, afforded a temporary relief to my spirits. My first care, on my arrival in town, was to glad

tters; and, after informing him (in the cover) of the change of my situation, and the incide

glow of affection, the features softened, the accents modulated, by ineffable tenderness, might, in the eyes of a virtuous man, have supplied the place of more dazzling accomplishments, and more seductive charms: if I over-rated my own merit, and my own powers-surely my mistakes were sufficiently humiliating! You should not, indeed you should not, have obliged me to arrive at the conviction through a series of deductions so full of mortification and an

lls me, I have not deserved this! Do not suspect, that I have so little justice, or so little magnanimity, as to refuse you the privilege, the enviable privilege, of being master of your own affections. I am

ried this fatal secret in the bottom of my soul! But repentance is, now, too late. Yet the sensible heart yearns to disclose itself-and to whom can it confide its sentiments, with equal propriety, as to him who will know how to pity the errors, of which he feels

n by one hour's frank conversation with you; I would compose myself, listen to you, and yield to the sovereignty of reason. After such an interview, my mind-no longer harrassed by vague suspicion, by a thousand na

mm

nd embarrassment were but too apparent; perceiving my distress, he kindly contrived to engage my hostess in discourse, that I might have time to rally my spirits. By degrees, I commanded myself sufficiently to join in the conversation-I spoke to him of his mother, expressed the lively sense I felt of her goodness, and my unaffected regret at parting with her. Animated by my subject, and encouraged by the

ow and tremulous tone, 'and yo

ld have perceived that my feelings were not enviable-Your affecting expostulation, added to other circum

t how-I could not answer your letter. What shall I say?-I am with-held from explaining myself further, by reasons-obligations-Who can look back on ever

s it with the full impression of your virtues on my heart that I must teach that heart to renounce you-renounce, for ever, the man with whose pure and elevated mind my own panted to mingle? My reason has been blinded by the illusions of

om it-I would, but

read, and aid me in forming a just judgment of the principles they contain-Must all your lessons be at an end-all my studies be resigned? How, without

rushing out at an opposite door, hid myself in my chamber. A train of confused recollections tortured my mind, I concluded, that Augustus had another, a prior attachment. I felt, with this conviction, that I had not the fortitude, and that perhaps I ought not, to see him again. I wrote to him under this impre