life receding from my view. Every thought, every impulse, every wish, but of the parent, dies within me; that, alas! struggles with mortality, that bids defiance until the last effort of memory. Ere I go hence, and am no more seen; ere the grave shall enshrine the mortal part of a once-doting father, to you, Eugenio, excellent young man amiable friend! to you I commit the care, the honour, the happiness of Philippina. You love each other, my children, you are formed for each other's felicity; let not then the vain scruples of delicacy, let not a mistaken respect to my memory, defer a union, which virtue, which propriety, which inclination sanctions.-Philippina, you are young, you are unprotected; the world will judge harshly of your actions, nay, your very innocence will condemn you with a husband, or in a convent, you must seek refuge. Witness, great Author of the universe! in this election, neither pride or ambition, no, nor one sublunary passion, influences my mo tives; if I err, it is in judgment, not from the heart: pardon then, Father of Heaven, the fault, nor on the offspring visit the offence of the parent; grant that the sacred covenant of marriage be the cement of confidence, of bliss, of affection; let no untoward event shadow their hopes, or blight their prospects!-I think I feel there will not. Oh! may the assurance be prophetic, and I die in peace! The Duca must yield to the resistless pleadings of Nature; he will receive Philippina for Eugenio's sake, he will love her for her own; he will welcome his children; he will live, while I die, blessing them. Farewell, my son, my daughter; dear tender ties, farewell! I have given you to each other, and I need no longer linger-the world has no more claims upon me: I sink beneath the pressure of disease, the burden of age. For the last, last time, my darling, Philippina, my Eugenio, farewell! In a few short hours, the heart, now so anxious, will have ceased to beat; in a few short hours, hours, the forms, so dear to memory, will be forgotten. LOUIS DE LINCHTENSTEIN.' ་ Philippina,' I articulated, as I concluded the letter, your father gives you to me;' but not all my efforts, not all my argu ments, could sooth her into composure; sobs were the only responses I could obtain; and when I spoke of future peace, her tears and her agitation augmented. Each revolving day beheld her absorbed in melancholy; and not for a month after the interment of her father, did she suffer me for a moment to speak of a plan my heart so eagerly suggested; even then, she baffled my persuasions with all the refinements of delicacy; nor yielded to them, till the wishes of her departed parent were held forth as an auxiliary: then, with blushing, hesitating reluctance, she acceded to my proposals; and in two days, in a small chapel, a few hundred yards from the villa, the rite of marriage was destined to be celebrated. "Suffer me here to pause," said the Duca, abruptly breaking the thread of his narrative;"alas! when Memory takes a retrospective view, her pangs are distraction to-morrow perhaps, but to-day I cannot. Oh, Philippina! buoyed by the sunshine of hope, I thought every obstacle surmounted, I thought the ray of bliss shone on our prospects, I thought felicity was our own!" Hiding his face in his hands, he rose from his seat, and slowly paced the apartment. CHAP. CHAP. II. A parent's rights lose their instinctive powers, when tyranny takes place of reason and affection. MRS. ROBINSON. "ALAS!" sighed the Duca, as, the following morning, he resumed the thread of his narrative, often, in the moment of promised felicity, does prophetic forebodings, gloomy presages of approaching evil, oppress the mind, and, in a fleeting moment, stamp on it the images of dire calamity: such was the fatal transition my heart experienced, as I flew to the appointed spot, to reap the rich harvest of my faithful persevering affection. The sun shone not upon our union; hid behind a cloud, the darkened 6 |