These particulars possest very few charms for me; and the moment that I was left to myself, I had recourse to my precious stolen treasure, of which I shall immediately communicate to you as much, as I have as yet had leisure to peruse. Oh! my kind Oswald, will you not blame me, when I confess, that even this interesting occupation was insufficient to banish Montfort from my mind? Yet to waste another thought on this paragon of human perfidy is too great a weakness—I will return to my parchments, in hopes to collecting from the sorrows of others resolution enough to endure my own with patience. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PART THE SECOND. MEMOIRS OF URANIA VENOSTA. It affords the mind a melancholy pleasure to look back in the evening of life, and contemplate the path which conducted us to that place of shelter, where tranquillity awaits us, and which at length appears in sight. Yet in such a moment we obtain but an imperfect view of the scenes through which we past; and the sensations which we at the time experienced, have already lost much of their poignancy. The chillness of approaching night makes us almost forget our sufferings, while toiling under the heat of the mid-day sun; and our eye glides easily along the deep vallies in which we feared to lose our way, and over the lofty mountains which it cost us so much labour to ascend—The whole now seems blended together, and we perceive scarcely any thing but a level surface; for the distance of those objects which we have left behind, and the darkness growing deeper with every moment, delude our eyes, and hide from us almost every thing, which once inspired us with such well-founded terror. Alas! the _pleasures_ of our pilgrimage are lost to us, as well as its difficulties and its dangers! we no longer see the flowers of the vale, in which we loitered; we hear no more the murmur of the brook, whose clear streams refreshed us when fainting with fatigue and thirst! we retain of the whole but one sensation; that the whole is _past_!—and we wonder not a little, when the transient recollection of former events occasionally flits before us, how such trifles could have possest the power of affecting us with violence so extreme. Such are our feelings in the decline of life; feelings which you too, beloved-ones, for whom I trace these lines, which you, my Amalberga, and you, my gentle Emmeline, will experience at the appointed hour. Alas! before that hour arrives, you must wander through a long and painful way, counting many a step of toil, and many a tear of sorrow: I feel it to be my duty once more to examine the road by which I have past myself; and by explaining to you the obstacles which impeded me in _my_ progress, I hope to enable you to overcome those, which may present themselves before you in your own.