, after some very commonplace expressions of condolence, took her leave, quite unconscious of the degree of misery she had occasioned.
Charlotte immediately retired to her room, in a situation of which no words can convey an adequate idea. Every faculty of her soul seemed suspended; she felt a sensation as if a heavy weight had been laid upon her heart; she could not shed a tear; her memory retained every image confusedly; her brain was a chaos of perplexity and disorder; and she found that to think, was distraction. When she had recovered the first numbing stroke of surprize, and horror, which seemed almost to annihilate her mind, the recollection of her past happiness called

forth her tears, and she wept for a considerable time with great violence. Her reflections now threw a gleam of fatal light on the past. A thousand circumstances, which had hitherto appeared whimsical or capricious in Seymour, were now too plainly accounted for, and the horrible suspicion became every moment more confirmed to her distracted mind.
Alas! in the sad catalogue of human evils, what calamity is so difficult to bear, as the discovery of indifference in that object to whom we have given our affections, and intrusted our happiness!—when we find that heart alienated, whose tenderness seems necessary to our existence; when we read coldness in that eye, on whose look our peace depends!—How severe are those pangs, for which we must not ask for sympathy, that anguish, which must be nourished in secret, and endured without complaint!—while memory recalls the

images of the past, traces with cruel exactness the scenes which some passionate mark of fondness, some proof of former attachment have endeared for ever!—repeats those expressions of tenderness which are recorded in the heart; reminds us even of the tone in which they were uttered, and gives additional bitterness to our pains!—In vain we summon fortitude to our aid. The efforts of reason are insufficient to stifle the agonies of passion, and silence the voice of despair!—Time may at length bid these violent emotions subside: misery will become habitual, and the mind may, in some degree, accommodate itself to its situation: but it must pass through many a severe extreme, it must sustain many a terrible conflict before it is thus made familiar with sorrow, or finds a refuge from it in the grave!
Sometimes, in the bitterness of her grief, Charlotte felt an impulse to fly to

Julia, and repose her anguish on the bosom of her friend. But she suddenly recollected, with increased affliction, that this consolation was denied to her sorrows. Friendship
