'I should vainly attempt to describe the struggles, the solicitudes, the doubts, the apprehensions, that alternately rend my heart! I feel, that I have "put to sea upon a shattered plank, and placed my trust in miracles for safety." I dread, one moment, lest, in attempting to awaken your tenderness, I may have forfeited your respect; the next, that I have mistaken a delusive meteor for the sober light of reason. In retirement, numberless contradictory emotions revolve in my disturbed mind:--in company, I start and shudder from accidental allusions, in which no one but myself could trace any application. The end of doubt is the beginning of repose. Say, then, to me, that it is a principle in human nature, however ungenerous, to esteem lightly what may be attained without difficulty.--Tell me to make distinctions between love and friendship, of which I have, hitherto, been able to form no idea.--Say, that the former is the caprice of fancy, founded on external graces, to which I have little pretension, and that it is vain to pretend, that-- "Truth and good are one, And beauty dwells with them." 'Tell me, that I have indulged too long the wild and extravagant chimeras of a romantic imagination. Let us walk together into the palace of Truth, where (it is fancifully related by an ingenious writer,[9] that) every one was compelled by an irresistible, controuling, power, to reveal his inmost sentiments! All this I will bear, and will still respect your integrity, and confide in your principles; but I can no longer sustain a suspense that preys upon my spirits. It is not the Book of Fate--it is your mind, only, I desire to read. A sickly apprehension overspreads my heart--I pause here, unable to proceed.' 'EMMA.' [Footnote 9: Madame de Genlis's Tales of the Castle.] CHAPTER XXVIII Week after week, month after month, passed away in the anguish of vain expectation: my letter was not answered, and I again sunk into despondency.--Winter drew near. I shuddered at the approach of this dreary and desolate season, when I was roused by the receipt of a letter from one of the daughters of the maternal aunt, under whose care I had spent the happy, thoughtless, days of childhood. My cousin informed me--