The novels of Charles Brockden Brown, consisting of Wieland;or, The transformation. Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the year 1793. Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a sleep-walker. Jane Talbot. Ormond; or, The secret witness. Clara Howard; or, The enthusiasm of love. With a memoir of the author.

198 JANE TALBOT.
I pity you, sir; I grieve for you: you have talents of a
certain kind, but your habits, wretchedly and flagitiously
perverse, have made you act on most occasions like an
idiot. Their iniquity was not sufficient to deter you from
impostures which-but I scorn to chide you.
My daughter is a monument of the success of your
schemes. — But their success shall never be complete.
While I live, she shall never join her interests with yours.
That is a vow which, I thank God, I am able to accomplish; and shall. H. FIELDER.
LETTER LI.
To James ilontford.
December 13.
Is not this strange, my friend? Miss Jessup, it seems,
has denied her own letter. Surely there was no mistake,
-no mystery. Let me look again at the words in the
cover.
Let me awake! Let me disabuse my senses! Yes.
It is plain. Miss Jessup repented her of her confession.
Something in that unopened letter-believing the contents of that known, there were inducements to sincerity
which the recovery of that letter, and the finding it unopened, perhaps annihilated. Pride resumed its power,
Before so partial a judge as Mrs. Fielder, and concerning
a wretch so worthy of discredit as I, how easy, how obvious to deny, and to impute to me the imposture charged
on herself!
i! Well, and what is now to be done? I will once more
return to Miss Jessup. I will force myself into her presence, and then- But I have not a moment to lose.
* * *,- *
And this was the night, this was the hour, that was to
see my Jane's hand wedded to mine! That event Providence, or fate, or fortune, stepped in to forbid. And
must it then pass away like any vulgar hour?
It deserves to be signalized, to be made memorable.
What forbids but sordid, despicable cowardice? Not vir