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. 97
me for enduring those evils which I cannot expect always
to escape.
You know, my mother, that the loss of my present
provision will not leave me destitute. If it did, I know
your generosity too well to imagine that you would withdraw from me all the means of support.
Indeed, my own fund, slender as it is in comparison
with what your bounty supplies me, is adequate to all my
personal wants: I am sure it would prove so on the trial.
So that I part with your gifts with less reluctance, though
with no diminution of my gratitude.
If I could bring to you my faith unbroken, and were
allowed to present to you my friend, I would instantly
fly to your presence; but that is a felicity too great for
my hope. The alternative, however painful, must be
adopted by Your ever-grateful JANE.
LETTER XXVII.
To MVfirs. Talbot.
Baltimore, November 5.
I IGIIHLY approve of your letter. It far exceeded the
expectations I had formed of you. You are indeed a
surprising creature.
One cannot fail to be astonished at the differences of
human characters; at the opposite principles by which
the judgments of men are influenced.
Experience, however, is the antidote of wonder. There
was a time when I should have reflected on the sentiments
of your mother with a firm belief that no human being
could be practically influenced by them.
She offers, and surely with sincerity, to divide her large
property with you; to give away half her estate during
her own life, and while, indeed, she is yet in her prime:
and to whom give it? To one who has no natural relation
to her; who is merely an adopted child; who has acted
for several years in direct repugnance to her will, in a
manner she regards as not only indiscreet, but flagrantly
criminal. Whom one guilty act has (so it must appear
9