 and that he loved her like his own child. "Indeed," added he, "she is one of those women whom it is impossible not to love."

Impossible indeed! thought Seymour. "Her disposition is very amiable," he replied. "So amiable," said Mr. Clifford, "and her person so lovely, that I wonder any young man can see her with indifference." Ah, thought Seymour, who can see her with indifference! "She is a charming young woman," he rejoined. "I hope," said Mr. Clifford, "to have the pleasure of seeing her happily settled this winter. Her countenance and figure, tacked to ten thousand pounds, I think, bid fair for a good marriage; and, when she is settled, I shall have nothing to do but to die." Seymour listened to this matrimonial project with the feelings of a criminal who hears his own condemnation. His soul recoiled at this plan of felicity; and he longed to persuade Mr. Clifford that happiness and matrimony had formed no inseparable alliance, but, on the contrary,

were often quite estranged from each other. He had, however, the prudence not to trust his feelings on this subject, and remained silent; while his uneasiness was entirely unobserved by Mr. Clifford.
When Seymour reflected on what had past, he was not much displeased at the recollection of the cause of Julia's emotion at dinner; nor was he concerned at the information that she looked pale on the day of his marriage, and that her colour went and came during the last stage. Such is the selfishness, the inconsistency of passion, that Seymour, though he would chearfully have sacrificed his life to save Julia the slightest uneasiness, would yet willingly have excited in her mind those sensations which overwhelmed his own with anguish, and have been soothed by acquiring an influence over her heart, which, he well knew, would never, in

the smallest degree, affect her conduct; and which, indeed, his own principles of honor, and a respect for her character, which amounted almost to idolatry, prevented him even from wishing it should. He might, therefore, have reflected, that any sensibility to his passion, could only serve to involve her in a degree of misery, which was almost insupportable to himself. But, the region of passion is a land of despotism, where reason exercises but a mock jurisdiction; and is continually forced to submit to an arbitrary tyrant, who, rejecting her fixed and temperate laws, is guided only by the dangerous
