Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 2).djvu/118

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duty you owe your father as well as yourself, to try and do every thing which can promote your happiness; endeavour, therefore, to erase from your heart those impressions, which can only give you pain, and to prepare it to esteem and be propitious to some worthy man.

"Should chance again throw de Sevignie in your way, fly from him instantly, I conjure you, except he offers a full explanation of his conduct. Excuse me, my love (on hearing a gentle sigh steal from Madeline) for mentioning a subject that is painful to you; but you are so innocent, so totally unacquainted with art, that too much caution cannot be used in guarding you against it. And even then (continued she, returning to the subject of de Sevignie) if he should offer to account for his conduct, do not listen to him; refer him to your father to give the explanation; for an unimpassioned ear he cannot deceive. If by any chance you should ever discover him to be the amiable character you once fancied, you will find by my will, which I