It was now that I had parted with Beatrice, that the conviction of the almost utter hopelessness of my suit forced itself upon my mind. Mr. Rochester was the nearest male relative of Beatrice, being her maternal uncle. Her parents were both deceased, and the uncle, whose death I have related, together with the Carolinian nabob, were, by her father’s will, her guardians. Mr. Rochester was, therefore, her natural protector. Her fortune, though large, was fettered with a condition that she should not marry without her guardian’s consent, and I soon learned that a union had long been projected between her and the eldest son of her surviving guardian. How little hope I had before, the reader knows, but that little was now fearfully diminished. It is true Beatrice had owned that she loved me, but how could I ask her to sacrifice the comforts as well as the elegancies of life, to share her lot with a poor unfriended midshipman? I could not endure the thought. What! should I take advantage of the gratitude of a pure young being—a being, too, who had always been nourished in the lap of luxury—to subject her to privation, and perhaps to beggary? No, rather would I have lived wholly absent from her presence. I could almost have consented to lose her love, sooner than be the instrument of inflicting on her miseries so crushing. My only hope was in winning a name that would yet entitle me to ask her hand as an equal: my only fear was, lest the length of time I should be absent from her side, would gradually lose me her affection. Such is the jealous fear of a lover’s heart. Meanwhile, however, the whole city resounded with the din of war. A despatch from the Secretary of Slate, to Gov. Eden, of Maryland, had been intercepted by Com. Barron, of the Virginia service, in the Chesapeake. From this missive, intelligence was gleaned that the capital of South Carolina was to be attacked; and on my arrival I found every exertion being made to place it in a posture of defence. I instantly volunteered, and the duties thus assumed, engrossing a large part of my time, left me little leisure, even for my suit. Still, however, I occasionally saw Beatrice, though the cold hauteur with which my visits were received by her uncle’s family, much diminished their frequency. As the time rolled on, however, and the British fleet did not make its appearance, there were not wanting many who believed that the contemplated attack had been given up. But I was not of the number. So firm, indeed, was my conviction of the truth of the intelligence that I ran out to sea every day or two, in a smart-sailing pilot-boat, in order, if possible, to gain the first positive knowledge of the approach of our foes. “A sail,” shouted our look-out one day, after we had been standing off and on for several hours, “a sail, broad on the weather-beam!”