His conscience reproved him for reiterated misrepresentations and calumnies of Theodore, with which he had harrassed the mind of Alida. He knew that a discovery must now be made of his perfidy, and on his return home to the village, he was confined to his room with a sudden illness, succeeded by a dangerous fever. CHAPTER XXXII. O, time! roll on thy wheels, and bring around the period, when social joy shall smile before me; when in the vernal day of life, or evening serene, I grow of one dear object more and more enamoured; while my remembrance swells with many a proof of interested friendship. The present situation of Albert was happily independent. The prolific soil of the estate, on which he lived, furnished him with an ample abundance. The prospect that surrounded him was inimitably beautiful, and the peculiar advantages of his eligible situation, was the admiration of the stranger who frequented the vicinity, or resorted in the summer season to the neighbouring village. Albert had descended from an ancient family, he had an estate to preserve, but not an entailed one, as was the case with many of his family, at this time in England. He was a gentleman, placid, humane and generous; altogether unacquainted with that ambition which sacrifices every thing to the desire of fortune, and the superfluous splendour that follows in her train. He was unacquainted with love too, the supreme power of which absorbs and concentrates all our faculties upon one sole object. That age of innocent pleasure, and of confident credulity, when the heart is yet a novice and follows the impulse of youthful sensibility, and bestows itself unreservedly upon the object of disinterested affection; then, surely, friendship is not a name. Albert, during his abode in the city, had associated with ladies of rank, beauty and accomplishments. He was a general favourite among them; he had been flattered, courted and caressed, but none had the power to fix his attention. Since his return to the country, he had been frequently invited to assemble among the artless villagers, decorated in their own native beauty, assisted sometimes for ornament with the spoils of Flora. Health, pleasure and naivette, was in the air of these charmers, and all that was pleasing to win his regard and esteem. These scenes of rural pleasure, these social parties, were adapted to his taste. In comparison of which the gay assemblages of the city had been formerly uninteresting; and he had been heard to say, that whenever his mind should become fixed, his choice would be some lady who resided in the country. Although Albert experienced a degree of happiness and contentment unknown to many, in his present situation, yet he sometimes felt himself very lonely.