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. 81
it at last, down I went, fully expecting to find a visitant,
not having heard any steps returning to the door.
But no visitant was there, and the paper was gone!
I was surprised, and a little alarmed. You know my
childish apprehensions of robbers.
I called up Molly, who was singing at her work in the
kitchen. She had heard the street-door open and shut,
and footsteps overhead, but she imagined them to be
mine. A little heavier, too, she recollected them to be,
than mine. She likewise heard a sound as if the door
had been opened and shut softly. It thus appeared that
my unknown visitant had hastily and secretly withdrawn,
and my paper had disappeared.
I was confounded at this incident. Who it was that
could thus purloin an unfinished letter and retire in order
to conceal the theft, I could not imagine. Nothing else
had been displaced. It was no ordinary thief, —no
sordid villain.
For a time, I thought perhaps it might be some facetious body, who expected to find amusement in puzzling
or alarming me. Yet I was not alarmed: for what had
I to fear or to conceal? The contents were perfectly
harmless; and, being fully satisfied with the purity of
my own thoughts, I never dreamed of any construction
being put on them, injurious to me.
I soon ceased to think of this occurrence. I had no
cause, as I then thought, to be anxious about consequences. The place of the lost letter was easily supplied by my loquacious pen, and I came at last to conjecture that I had carelessly whisked it into the fire, and
that the visitant had been induced to withdraw, by finding the apartment empty. Yet I never discovered any
one who had come in and gone out in this manner. Miss
Jessup, whom I questioned afterwards, had spent that
day elsewhere. And now, when the letter and its contents were almost forgotten, does it appear before me,
and is offered in proof of this dreadful charge.
After reading my mother's letter, I opened with trembling hand that which was enclosed. I instantly recognised the long-lost billet. All of it appeared, on the
first perusal, to be mine. Even the last mysterious para