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DUTY AND INCLINATION.

to give her admittance into the Hermitage, and to the library she had left.

It was vacant. The empty chairs, so recently occupied, continued in the centre of the apartment. The Doctor's book lay open upon the table. No trace or vestige was seen of Philimore. As if bereaved of intellect, that child of nature and of impulse was still gazing in mute anguish at those objects before her, when the image which had been then present to her fancy only, stood revealed in his material and embodied form. She would have presented him her hand in token of what she meant to utter, but overwhelmed, she sunk trembling into the chair in which Philimore had sat, when exhibiting to her a spectacle of woe and despair. Melted into an excess of tenderness, compassion, and love, tears fast dropping from her eyes, she sought utterance—but in vain.

To the feelings of surprise, which had at first seized upon Philimore on again beholding Oriana, succeeded a sense of bliss, a rapture unbounded! It was impossible for him to misinterpret the silent but expressive language he witnessed; the condescension granted him was eloquence itself, and spoke to his heart a language not to be mistaken, and the forcible appeal to his feelings hur-