Yes, _Philander_, I have received your letter, and but I found my name there, should have hoped it was not meant for _Sylvia_! Oh! It is all cold--short--short and cold as a dead winter’s day. It chilled my blood, it shivered every vein. Where, oh where hast thou lavished out all those soft words so natural to thy soul, with which thou usedst to charm; so tuned to the dear music of thy voice? What is become of all the tender things, which, as I used to read, made little nimble pantings in my heart, my blushes rise, and tremblings in my blood, adding new fire to the poor burning victim! Oh where are all thy pretty flatteries of love, that made me fond and vain, and set a value on this trifling beauty? Hast thou forgot thy wondrous art of loving? Thy pretty cunnings, and thy soft deceivings? Hast thou forgot them all? Or hast thou forgot indeed to love at all? Has thy industrious passion gathered all the sweets, and left the rifled flower to hang its withered head, and die in I shades neglected? For who will prize it now, now when all its I perfumes are fled? Oh my _Philander_, oh my charming fugitive! Was it not enough you left me, like false _Theseus_, on the shore, on the forsaken shore, departed from my fond, my clasping arms; where I believed you safe, secure and pleased, when sleep and night, that favoured you and ruined me, had rendered them incapable of their dear loss! Oh was it not enough, that when I found them empty and abandoned, and the place cold where you had lain, and my poor trembling bosom unpossessed of that dear load it bore, that I almost expired with my first fears? Oh, if _Philander_ loved, he would have thought that cruelty enough, without the sad addition of a growing coldness: I awaked, I missed thee, and I called aloud, ’.Philander_! my _Philander_!’ But no Philander heard; then drew the close-drawn curtains, and with a hasty and busy view surveyed the chamber over; but oh! In vain I viewed, and called yet louder, but none appeared to my assistance but _Antonet_ and _Brilliard_, to torture me with dull excuses, urging a thousand feigned and frivolous reasons to satisfy my fears: but I, who loved, who doted even to madness, by nature soft, and timorous as a dove, and fearful as a criminal escaped, that dreads each little noise, fancied their eyes and guilty looks confessed the treasons of their hearts and tongues, while they, more kind than true, strove to convince my killing doubts, protested that you would return by night, and feigned a likely story to deceive. Thus between hope and fear I languished out a day; oh heavens! A tedious day without _Philander_: who would have thought that such a dismal day should not, with the end of its reign, have finished that of my life! But then _Octavio_ came to visit me, and who till then I never wished to see, but now I was impatient for his coming, who by degrees told me that you were gone--I never asked him where, or how, or why; that you were gone was enough to possess me of