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.

JANE TALBOT. 61
After reading your letter, and seeing full proof of your
infatuation, I resolved to throw away my care no longer
upon you; to think no more of you; to act just as if you
never had existence; whenever it was possible, to shun
you; when I met you, by chance, or perforce, to treat you
merely as a stranger. I write this letter to acquaint you
with my resolution. Your future letters cannot change
it, for they shall all be returned to you unopened.
I know you better than to trust to the appearance of
half-yielding reluctance which your letter contains. Thus
it has always been, and as often as this duteous strain
flattered me with hopes of winning you to reason, have
I been deceived and disappointed.
I trust to your discernment, your seeming humility, no
longer. No child are you of mine. You have, henceforth, no part in my blood; and may I very soon forget
that so lost and betrayed a wretch ever belonged to it!
I charge you, write not to me again. H. F.
LETTER XIV.
To 2lirs. Fielder.
Philadelphia, October 24.
IMPOSSIBLE! Are you not my mother?-more to me
than any mother? Did I not receive your protection and
instruction in my infancy and my childhood? When left
an orphan by my own mother, your bosom was open to
receive me. There was the helpless babe cherished, and
there was it taught all that virtue which it has since endeavoured to preserve unimpaired in every trial.
You must not cast me off. You must not hate me.
You must not call me ungrateful and a wretch. Not to
have merited these names is all that enables me to endure
your displeasure. As long as that belief consoles me, my
heart will not break.
Yet that, even that, will not much avail me. The distress that I now feel, that I have felt ever since the receipt of your letter, cannot be increased.
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