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.

THE ENTHUSIASM OF LOVE.

69

wrote the last letter from Hatfield! Yet who could
imagine that the intelligence contained in it would suggest so rash, so precipitate a flight?
This Sedley, whose fidelity, whose honour, I have so
often applauded, is, I am afraid, a miscreant,-a villain.
Mary-the very thought takes away my breath-is, I
fear, a lost, undone creature.
Yet how? Such a fall surely was impossible. Mary
Wilmot, whose whole life has been exposed to my view,
-whom I have seen in the most unguarded moments,whose indifference to Sedley, whose unconquerable aversion to his most honourable and flattering offers, I have
so often witnessed,-could not forget herself. Her dignity-I will not believe it.
But what am I saying? Let me recollect myself, and
lay distinctly before you the cause of my apprehensions.
This morning, being disengaged, and the air mild, instead of going on with this letter, I stole abroad to enjoy
the sweet breath of heaven. My feet carried me unawares to the door of the house in which I formerly passed
a servitude of three years. My old master, Watkins, of
time-measuring memory, has been some time dead.. The
widow turned her stock into revenue, and now lives at
her ease. Though not eminently good, she is far from
being a bad woman. She never behaved otherwise than
kindly to "Philip Sobersides," as she used to call me;
and I felt somewhat like gratitude, which.would not let
me pass the door. So I called to see the old dame.
I found her by a close-stove in the parlour, knitting a
blue stocking. "Lack-a-day!" said she; "why, as I's
a living soul, this is our Philip!"
After the usual congratulations and inquiries were
made, she proceeded:-"Why, what a fine story is this,
Philip, that we hear of you! —Why, they say you've
grown a rich man's son, and are going to be married to
a fine rich great lady from some other country."
I avoided a direct answer. She continued:-"Ah!
dear me, we all thought you were going to be married
to poor Molly Wilmot, the mantuamaker. Nay, for the
matter o' that, my poor dear man, I remember, said as
how that, if so be we'd wait a year or so, we should see