my longing after natural affections, and my grief at being desolate, was that the despair of guilty love? And when I thought that I was only envying the _picture_ of his bliss, did my impious wishes aspire to the object itself? What cause had I given to be suspected of so hopeless a passion? Might I not love him more than my own life, and yet with innocence? Did the mother, when she threw herself into the lion's jaw to save her son, or the brothers and sisters, who intreated that they might die upon the same scaffold, and united their prayers to heaven as they went up to it, did they feel influenced by guilty love? Is not humanity alone the cause of the sublimest devotion of every kind? And why might I not have the same feelings for Charles, my friend from infancy, and the protector of my youth? And yet a secret voice unheard before warns me that I am guilty! Oh, heaven! remorse must then become a fresh torment to my wasted heart! Poor Ourika! Every species of misery must then oppress her! Poor Ourika! and are even her tears become a crime? Is she forbidden to think of him? Must she no longer dare even to be unhappy! * * * * * These thoughts threw me into a death-like stupor. Before night came I was taken violently ill, and in three days my life was despaired of. My physician declared that the sacrament should be promptly administered to me, for there was not a moment to lose. My confessor had died a short time since. Madame de B. sent for the parish priest, who could only bestow extreme unction upon me, for I was perfectly insensible to what was passing round me. But then when my death was hourly expected, when all hopes were over, then it was that God took pity on my soul, by preserving my life. Contrary to all expectation I continued to struggle against my illness; at the end of which time my senses returned to me. Madame de B. had never left me, and Charles's affection for me seemed returned. The priest had visited me every day, anxious to find an interval of reason to confess me; I desired it likewise as soon as I had thought again; I seemed led by an involuntary impulse to seek for repose in the bosom of religion. I made an avowal of my errors to the priest. The state of my soul did not frighten him. Like an old experienced mariner, he was accustomed to the tempest. He quieted my fears as to the passion I was accused of. "Your heart is pure," said he; "you have injured no one but yourself, and in that you were guilty. You will have to account for your happiness to God, for he entrusted it to you. It depended on yourself, since it lies in the performance of your duty. Have you ever considered in what that duty consisted? God should be the aim of man, but has your's been? Let not, however, let not thy courage fail thee, Ourika; but pray to God. He hears you, and will receive you in his arms. He knows no difference of men or colour. All are of equal value in his eye, and do thou strive to render