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. 157
man at last got married,-ten to one, for no other reason
than to get rid of her."
This intelligence was new. Much as I had heard of
Miss Jessup, a story like this had never reached my
ears. I quickly ascertained that the Talbot spoken of
was the late husband of my friend.
Some incident interrupted the conversation here. The
image of Miss Jessup was displaced to give room to more
important reveries, and I thought no more of her till this
night's ramble. I now likewise recollected that the only
person suspected of having entered the apartment where
lay Mrs. Talbot's unfinished letter was no other than Miss
Jessup herself, who was always gadding at unseasonable
hours. How was this suspicion removed? By Miss Jessup
herself, who, on being charged with the theft, asserted that
she was elsewhere engaged at the time.
It was, indeed, exceedingly improbable that Miss Jessup
had any agency in this affair,-a volatile, giddy, thoughtless character, who betrayed her purposes on all occasions,
from a natural incapacity to keep a secret. And yet
had not this person succeeded in keeping her attachment
to Mr. Talbot from the knowledge, and even the suspicion,
of his wife? Their intercourse had been very frequent
since her marriage, and all her sentiments appeared to
be expressed with a rash and fearless confidence. Yet, if
Hannah Secker's story deserved credit, she had exerted
a wonderful degree of circumspection, and had placed on
her lips a guard that had never once slept.
I determined to stop at Wilmington next day, on my
journey to you, and glean what further information
Hannah could give. I ran to her lodgings as soon as I
alighted at the inn.
I inquired how long and in what years she lived with
Miss Jessup; what reason she had for suspecting her mistress of an attachment to Talbot; what proofs Talbot gave
of aversion to her wishes.
On each of these heads her story was tediously minute
and circumstantial. She lived with Miss Jessup and her
mother before Talbot's marriage with my friend, after
the marriage, and during his absence on the voyage which
occasioned his death.
14