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. 85
your eyes than-what? Let not him, my girl, who
knows thee best, have most reason to blush for thee.
Talbot, you imagine, forged this calumny. It was a
wrong thing, and much unhappiness has flowed from it.
This calumny you have it, at length, in your power to
refute. Its past effects cannot be recalled; but here
the evil may end, the mistake may be cleared up, and
be hindered from destroying the future peace of your
mother.
Yet you forbear from tenderness to his memory, who,
if you are consistent with yourself, you must believe to
look back on that transaction with remorse, to lament
every evil which it has hitherto occasioned, and to rejoice
in the means of stopping the disastrous series.
My happiness is just of as little value. Your mother's
wishes, though allowed to be irrational and groundless,
are to be gratified by the disappointment of mine, which
appear to be just and reasonable; and, since one must be
sacrificed, that affection with which you have inspired
me and those benefits you confess to owe to me, those
sufferings believed by you to have been incurred by me
for your sake, do not, it seems, entitle me to preference.
On- this score, however, my good girl, set your heart
at ease. I never assumed the merits you attributed to
me. I never urged the claims you were once so eager to
admit. I desire not the preference. If, by abjuring
me, your happiness could be secured; if it were possible
for you to be that cheerful companion of your mother
which you seem so greatly to wish; if, in her society,
you could stifle every regret, and prevent your tranquillity
from being invaded by self-reproach, most gladly would
I persuade you to go to her and dismiss me from your
thoughts forever.
But I know, Jane, that this cannot be. You never
will enjoy peace under your mother's roof. The sighing
heart and the saddened features will forever upbraid her,
and bickering and repining will mar every domestic scene.
Your mother's aversion to me is far from irreconcilable,
but that which will hasten reconcilement will be marriage.
You cannot forfeit her love as long as you preserve your
integrity; and those scruples which no argument will
8