Uneasiness and curiosity drove me thither at the appointed hour. The Baroness was waiting for me. “The Countess is at church,” said she, “let me take advantage of her short absence, and commit a little treachery; but take heed not so betray me to my friend!”
“Certainly not,” I replied, my curiosity being harrowed up to the highest degree by this exordium.
“All that I have to disclose to you is contained in two words: you are beloved, my Lord!”
“My Lady!”---
“Give me leave to relate the matter in a proper manner.” The Baroness, seemed delighted with my astonishment, continued, “recollect your first interview with the Countess; you have not been indifferent to her already, at the time when she accepted the ring which you offered her; however, the good Countess did not know it then herself. She fancied her sentiments to be merely the effects of the gratitude which she imagined the owed you, because you have been the primary cause of the long wished for apparition of her deceased Lord. However, that apparition which declared you, afterwards, the son of the murderer, made thereby Amelia think it her duty to restrain her kindness for you. The difficulty which she had to submit to the voice of duty, told her plainly, that in her heart something more than gratitude was panting for you. Fortunately, the ghost himself had desired her to forgive the murderer; she imagined, therefore, it would be but just to extend the forgiveness to the son. She did not foresee that her tenderness for you, covered by that pretext, would find so much the less difficulty to steal again into the heart which it scarcely had been expelled. Not before Amelia’s tenderness for you rose to a degree, which left no room for doubt of her attachment for you, did she perceive that her readiness to be reconciled to you, originated less from the request of the ghost, than from that of her own heart. You may believe me, my Lord, that it was no easy matter to draw these particulars from Amelia’s lips. She concealed carefully in her bosom a passion, the existence of which she trembled to confess. She had made a vow of eternal fidelity to her late Lord, and although she fancied she had not violated her promise by voluntary sentiments, yet a confession of these sentiments, though deposited only in the bosom of an intimate friend, appeared to her a profanation of her solemn declaration. However her speaking frequently of you with evident marks of partiality, made me, nevertheless, suspect a part of the secret, which the Irishman’s vision unfolded entirely to me.
(To be continued.)
MISFORTUNE.
To fly from misfortunes, and endeavour to console ourselves by retiring from the world, is undoubtedly encreasing the evil we wish to lessen. This has often been the case of disappointed lovers. They have vainly imagined, that there must be something very soothing to the afflicted mind, in listening to the plaintive sound of some purling and meandering stream, or in uttering their plaints to the gentle breezes and the nodding groves. But, alas! these delusive consolations only contribute to feed the disorders of the mind, and increase the evil till melancholy takes deep root in their souls, and renders their complaints incurable.
The society of the polite and refined of both sexes is the only relief, at least the principal one, for any uneasiness of the mind. Here a variety of objects will insensibly draw our attention from that one which tyrannises in our bosom, and endeavours to exclude all others.