listening to her story, had a great deal of what I deem the luxury of woe in it, I fear that this delicate sensation may have evaporated, from the frequent breaks in the recital, as much as the original spirit has, in my translation—but at at all hazards, I will now proceed.
On perusing this shocking and surprising manuscript, continued Mrs. Walter,

my head turned round, and I had just presence of mind sufficient to convey it into my pocket, before I dropt upon the floor. The servants heard me fall, and came to my assistance.—Happy would it have been for me, if they had spared their cruel officiousness, and suffered me to have expired at that moment!
My distress and despondency, upon this occasion, may appear unaccountable, perhaps, to others. An husband's leaving his wife, sometimes, upon several occasions of business, was not so uncommon a case as to have alarmed me.—But there is a sort of praesentiment, in the mind, which often forebodes approaching ills; philosophy must here be at a stand. This circumstance cannot be accounted

for from nature, as the present situation may have no sensible connection with the future events; nor can such an effect be imputed to Providence neither, without the impiety of supposing it capable of rendering us wretched, before our time, by giving us a hint of misfortunes to come, without supplying us with the means of avoiding them.
Besides, did not the address of his billet, the stiling me by my own sirname of d'Alemberg, instead of Walter, or even that of d'Olivet, which he had artfully prevailed on me to assume, during our residence together at Marseilles, sufficiently evince that he no longer meant to consider me as his wife, for the future? This circumstance too, supplied me with a strong reason, also, to suspect

that in reality I had no legal title to that claim, as the unknown person who had so clandestinely performed the ceremony, might not probably have been properly qualified, by the orders of any church, to have officiated in the marriage rites.
It was, perhaps, no small aggravation to my misfortunes, to reflect, that had not my own indiscretion aided his dishonour, I should not now have been so totally abandoned, unjustified, unfriended, and unsustained, to the sport of fortune, to the mercy of a malignant, censorious, and unpitying world!
Some days after this event, I was lying on my bed, in a state of stupid distraction, when the sudden stopping of a

chaise at my