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. 73
Yet my heart sorely misgives me. I shudder at the
extremes to which thy accursed seducer may have urged
thee. What thou hast failed in concealing thou mayest
be so obdurately wicked as to attempt to justify.
Was it not the-unavoidable result of confiding in a man
avowedly irreligious and immoral; of exposing thy understanding and thy heart to such stratagems as his philosophy made laudable and necessary? But I know not
what I would say. I must lay down the pen till I can
reason myself into some composure. I will write again
to-morrow. HI. FIELDER.
LETTER XVI.
To the same.
O MY lost child! In thy humiliations at this moment I
can sympathize. The shame that must follow the detection of it is more within my thoughts at present than the
negligence or infatuation that occasioned thy faults.
I know all. Thy intended husband knew it all. It
was from him that the horrible tidings of thy unfaithfulness to marriage-vows first came.
He visited this city on purpose to obtain an interview
with me. He entered my apartment with every mark of
distress. He knew well the effect of such tidings on my
heart. Most eagerly would I have laid down my life to
preserve thy purity spotless.
He demeaned himself as one who loved thee with a
rational affection, and who, however deeply he deplored
the loss of thy love, accounted thy defection from virtue
of infinitely greater moment.
I was willing to discredit even his assertion. Far better
it was that the husband should prove the defamer of his
wife, than that my darling child should prove a profligate.
But he left me no room to doubt, by showing me a letter.
I-e showed it me on condition of my being everlastingly
silent to you in regard to its contents. He yielded to a
jealousy which would not be conquered, and had gotten
this letter by surreptitious means. He was ashamed of
7