Guy Mannering.

204 VWAVERLEY NOVELS.
FIFTH EXTRACT.
"How shall I communicate what I have now to tell!
My hand and heart still flutter so much, that the task
of writing is almost impossible! Did I not say that he
lived? did I not say I would not despair? How could
you suggest, my dear Matilda, that my feelings, considering I had parted from him so young, rather arose from
the warmth of my imagination than of my heart? 0! I
was sure that they were genuine, deceitful as the dictates
of our bosom so frequently are. But to my tale-let it
be, my friend, the most sacred, as it is the most sincere
pledge of our friendship.
"Our hours here are early-earlier than my heart,
with its load of care, can compose itself to rest. I, therefore, usually take a book for an hour or two after retiring
to my own room, which I think I have told you opens to
a small balcony, looking down upon that beautiful lake,
of which I attempted to give you a slight sketch. Mervynhall, being partly an ancient building, and constructed with
a view to defence, is situated on the verge of the lake. A
stone dropped from the projecting balcony plunges into
water deep enough to float a skiff. I had left my window
partly unbarred, that, before I went to bed, I might,
according to my custom, look out and see the moonlight
shining upon the lake. I was deeply engaged with that
beautiful scene in the Merchant of Venice, where two
lovers, describing the stillness of a summer night, enhance
on each other its charms, and was lost in the associations
of story and of feeling which it awakens, when I heard
upon the lake the sound of a flageolet. I have told you
it was Brown's favourite instrument. Who could touch
it in a night which, though still and serene, was too cold,
and too late in the year, to invite forth any wanderer