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DUTY AND INCLINATION.
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sweet attraction breathed around her, investing with seraphic charms her person, annexed no other idea of the seeming partiality of Douglas, than the supposition that it proceeded from habits of gallantry, acquired by an intercourse with fashionable life; a species of adulation, which from her mother's early instructions she had been taught to expect, as a current coin from the one sex to the other, insignificant in itself, and practised for the mere amusement of the moment. Though thus unsuccessful in gaining upon her confidence, Douglas nevertheless was not deficient in occupying and pleasing her fancy. Ah! why was there such an intermixture in him of impetuous feeling with tenderness of sentiment; why did she at one time turn aside, intimidated by his gaze, and at another lend a delighted ear to the masculine energy and grace of his language? His was a mind of extremes, rarely sustaining an equilibrium; good and evil swayed him alternately. He spoke in a sort of ecstasy upon the charms of the female sex, upon the endearments of married life; and whilst his eyes were directed with eloquent softness towards Rosilia, he drew such an interesting and glowing picture of the felicity, the bliss he should taste in domestic scenes, could he but share them with one he loved, that his remarks became too pointed to