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.

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ORMOND; OR,

thirst of vengeance, but from a mournful curiosity. Had
the perpetrator stood before her and challenged retribution, she would not have lifted a finger to accuse or to
punish. The evil already endured left her no power to
concert and execute projects for extending that evil to
others. Her mind was unnerved, and recoiled with loathing from considerations of abstract justice, or political
utility, when they prompted to the prosecution of the
murderer.
Melbourne was actuated by different views, but on this
subject he was painfully bewildered. Mr. Dudley's deportment to his servants and neighbours was gentle and
humane. He had no dealings with the trafficking or
labouring part of mankind. The fund which supplied
his cravings of necessity or habit was his daughter's.
His recreations and employments were harmless and
lonely. The evil purpose was limited to his death, for
his chamber was exactly in the same state in which
negligent security had left it. No midnight footstep or
voice, no unbarred door or lifted window, afforded tokens
of the presence or traces of the entrance or flight of the
assassin.
The meditations of Constantia, however, could not fail
in some of their circuities to encounter the image of
Craig. His agency in the impoverishment of her father,
and in the scheme by which she had like to have been
loaded with the penalties of forgery, was of an impervious
and unprecedented kind. Motives were unveiled by time,
in some degree accounting for his treacherous proceeding; but there was room to suppose an inborn propensity
to mischief. Was he not the author of this new evil?
His motives and his means were equally inscrutable, but
their inscrutability might flow from her own defects in
discernment and knowledge, and time might supply her
defects in this as in former instances.
These images were casual. The causes of the evil
were seldom contemplated. Her mind was rarely at
liberty to wander from reflection on her 'irremediable
loss. Frequently, when confused by distressful recollections, she would detect herself going to her father's
chamber. Often his well-known accents would ring in