Alida ruminated on her lonely situation. She reflected on former days, and the many happy hours that had gone by for ever, when the roses of health had arrayed her cheeks, and gay thought had filled her fancy, and every object was decked with the charms of fascination, when her heart was unacquainted with sorrow, and experienced serenity and happiness without alloy. She deplored the loss of a kind father; in him she was deprived of a friend, who could never be again supplied to her, and in whose society her mind was in a constant progressive state of improvement. His filial affection, his kindness, his watchful endeavours for her welfare, were evinced by a careful anxiety and pains to enlighten her mind with those qualities and acquirements, that would be most conducive to enlarge her sphere of usefulness in life, and furnish her with the means of rational pleasure, and to blend with her personal appearance the more fascinating charms of a well-improved understanding. She mourned his loss at a residence where every object recalled him continually to her remembrance. She was wholly absorbed in melancholy, and amid these sad ideas that agitated her bosom alternately, Bonville arrived from the neighbouring village, and her attention was for a time diverted, and she was relieved from a train of painful reflections. Her brother had a long conversation with him respecting Theodore, and wondered how it happened that his friend Raymond had never received any intelligence from him. Bonville seemed much embarrassed at these observations of Albert, and it was some length of time before he made any reply. Then biting his lips, and putting on an air of displeasure, he said that he had actually thought of going to England himself, to trace him out, and ascertain the cause of his strange conduct. Then assuming a look of insignificance, accompanied with several speeches in double entendre, he remained in sullen silence. The conduct of Theodore certainly, thought Alida, is mysterious and singular, and his long silence is truly unaccountable, and the idea of ever meeting him again with these different impressions, that at present bore sway over her mind, agitated her greatly. In happier days, when her hopes had rested on him in full confidence, she thought herself sufficiently strong to bear every other evil; but to be assured of his inconstancy, was an idea she could scarcely endure. Although Albert might decidedly be called a person of discernment, still he had not yet fully discovered the deceptive powers of Bonville, whose many evil propensities were in a manner concealed, by a condescending courtesy and affability; though his mind inherited ill-nature and sarcasm in the extreme. The sprightliness of his manners, mingled with a certain degree of humour and generous sentiments, occasionally mingling with his discourse, threw a veil over his imperfections, and excited one's admiration.