pice so long yawning to receive her, its innocent and defenceless victim!
A few days after the arrival of the De Brookes at the Bower, a letter was put into the hands of Rosilia, in the presence of her parents. She thought she knew the hand-writing, and was not deceived when with trembling hands she broke the seal and found the signature to be that of Melliphant.
His epistle was voluminous, written closely, and filling two sheets of long letter paper: he began by painting in the strongest terms the melancholy stupefaction into which her absence had plunged him; and the imminent peril into which the strength of his passion had nearly driven him, he still shuddered to think of. He hoped that instead of condemning, she had rather vindicated and pitied him, for that fatal conduct to which an involuntary impulse, springing from despair, had abandoned him, the victim of an uncontrollable passion, of which she was the author. She could form no conception of the nature and strength of his sentiments for her, or the difficulty of surviving her refusal of him.
He then described how the anguish of his mind had induced him to haunt the place of her abode, the night previous to her departure;—the terror he felt for the fate of his letter;—begged an immediate answer, which if he did not receive in proper time, would cause him to follow her into Wales;—and that he should immediately avail himself of the frequent invitations given by his relation, Sir Arthur Melli-
