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,

claims to human approbation and divine applause will be
undiminished and unaltered by it. The testimony of
approving conscience will have lost none of its explicitness
and energy. Yet thou wilt feed upon sighs; thy tears
will flow without remission; thou wilt grow enamoured of
death, and perhaps wilt anticipate the stroke of disease.
"Yet perhaps my prediction is groundless as my knowledge. Perhaps thy discernment will avail to make thee
wise and happy. Perhaps thou wilt perceive thy privilege of sympathetic and intellectual activity to be untouched. Heaven grant the non-fulfilment of my pro~phecy, thy disenthralment from error, and the perpetuation of thy happiness."
Saying this, Ormond withdrew. His words were always accompanied with gestures and looks and tones that
fastened the attention of the hearer; but the terms of his
present discourse afforded, independently of gesticulation
and utterance, sufficient motives to attention and remembrance. He was gone, but his image was contemplated
by Constantia; his words still rung in her ears.
The letter she designed to compose was rendered, by
this interview, unnecessary. Meanings of which she and
her friend alone were conscious were discovered by Ormond, through some other medium than words; yet that
was impossible. A being unendowed with preternatural
attributes could gain the information which this man possessed, only by the exertion of his senses.
All human precautions had been used to baffle the
attempts of any secret witness. She recalled to mind
the circumstances in which conversations with her friend
had taken place. All had been retirement, secrecy, and
silence. The hours usually dedicated to sleep had been
devoted to this better purpose. Much had been said, in
a voice low and scarcely louder than a whisper. To have
overheard it at the distance of a few feet was apparently
impossible.
Their conversations had not been recorded by her. It
could not be believed that this had been done by Sophia
Courtland. Had Ormond and her friend met during the
interval that had elapsed between her separation from the
latter and her meeting with the former? Human events