assurance took the place of doubt. The last, every day would contribute to correct. Permit me, then, _to hope for_, as well as to seek your affections, and if I do not, at length, gain and secure them, it will be a phenomenon in the history of mind! 'But to proceed to my third supposition--The peculiar, pecuniary, embarrassments of your situation--Good God! did this barbarous, insidious, relation, allow himself to consider the pernicious consequences of his absurd bequest?--threatening to undermine every manly principle, to blast every social virtue? Oh! that I had the eloquence to rouse you from this tame and unworthy acquiescence--to stimulate you to exercise your talents, to trust to the independent energies of your mind, to exert yourself to procure the honest rewards of virtuous industry. In proportion as we lean for support on foreign aid, we lose the dignity of our nature, and palsey those powers which constitute that nature's worth. Yet, I will allow, from my knowledge of your habits and associations, this obstacle its full force. But there remains one method of obviating, even this! I will frankly confess, that could I hope to gain the interest in your heart, which I have so long and so earnestly sought--my confidence in your honour and integrity, my tenderness for you, added to the wish of contributing to your happiness, would effect, what no lesser considerations could have effected--would triumph, not over my principles, (_for the individuality of an affection constitutes its chastity_) but over my prudence. I repeat, I am willing to sacrifice every inferior consideration--retain your legacy, so capriciously bequeathed--retain your present situation, and I will retain mine. This proposition, though not a violation of modesty, certainly involves in it very serious hazards--_It is, wholly, the triumph of affection!_ You cannot suppose, that a transient engagement would satisfy a mind like mine; I should require a reciprocal faith plighted and returned--an after separation, otherwise than by mutual consent, would be my destruction--I should not survive your desertion. My existence, then, would be in your hands. Yet, having once confided, your affection should be my recompence--my sacrifice should be a cheerful and a voluntary one; I would determine not to harrass you with doubts nor jealousies, I would neither reflect upon the past, nor distrust the future: I would rest upon you, I would confide in you fearlessly and entirely! but, though I would not enquire after the past, my delicacy would require the assurance of your present, undivided, affection.