 various horrors of her situation. Fraternal love and pity called loudly upon her to resign herself into the power of the man, whom from the earliest dawn of perception, she had contemplated with trembling aversion and horror. The memory of her murdered parent, every feeling dear to virtue, the tremulous, but forceful

voice of love awakened her heart, and each opposed with wild impetuosity, every other sentiment. Her soul shrunk back with terror from the idea of union with the Baron. Could she bear to receive in marriage, that hand which was stained with the blood of her father?—The polluted touch would freeze her heart in horror!—Could she bear to pass her life with the man, who had for ever blasted the smiling days of him who gave her being?—With the man who would stand before her eyes a perpetual monument of misery to herself, and of dishonour to her family? whose chilling aspect would repel every amiable and generous affection, and strike them back upon her heart only to wound it? To cherish the love of the noble virtues, would be to cherish the remembrance of her dead father, and of her living lover. How wretched mud be her situation, when to obliterate from her memory the image of virtue, could alone afford

her a chance of obtaining a horrid tranquillity; virtue, which is so dear to the human heart, that when her form forsakes us, we pursue her shadow. Whereever in search of comfort she directed her aching sight, Misery's haggard countenance obtruded on her view. Here she beheld herself entombed in the arms of the murderer;—there, the spectacle of her beloved brother, encircled with chains, and awaiting the stroke of death, arose to her imagination; the scene was too affecting; fancy gave her the horrors of reality. The reflection, that through her, he suffered, that she yet might save him from destruction, broke with irresistible force upon her mind, and instantly bore, away every opposing feeling. She resolved, that since she must be wretched, she would be nobly wretched; since misery demanded one sacrifice, she would devote herself the victim.

With these thoughts, she entered the apartment of the Countess, whose concurrence was necessary to ratify her resolves, and, having declared them, awaited in trembling expectation her decision. Matilda had suffered a distraction of mind, which the nature of no former trial had occasioned her. On the unfortunate death of a husband tenderly beloved, she had suffered all the sorrow which tenderness, and all the shock which the manner of his death could inspire. The event, however
