'Be secret,' said Mr. Valmont. Most readily can I be secret. I would have it remain a profound and everlasting secret, never to interrupt the delicious enjoyments which now again hover within my reach, which I must seize on. I have not the cold ability to chase from me the present smiling hour of offered delight, because a future hour may frown. Pleasure beckons, and I follow. I tread the mazy round of her varieties. Youth, vigour, and fancy conduct me to her shrine, the most indefatigable of her votaries. Alike, I abjure retrospect and foreboding. As long as I can find means, will I elude the horrible change; and, if the fatal hour of darkness must arrive, why, Arthur, it is but to exert a little manhood, it is but to remember that all the charms of life are passed by, and boldly to plunge into everlasting darkness. Imagine not, dear Arthur, by that doleful conclusion that I at all dread the possibility of its arrival; for, on the contrary, I believe my dismission is a mere farce, a something with Mr. Valmont to vary project and prolong inconsistency. I have compared his letters and his speeches; combined circumstances; and find them, though so various and contradictory, yet full of hope and promise. One cause of dread, indeed, will assail me. I dread the rashness of Sibella. Could you suppose, Murden, that she has even talked of explaining the nature of our intimacy to her uncle, and of quitting his castle? Was ever any thing so violent, so absurd, so pregnant with evil at this scheme? When I had read her letter, I thought every chair in my apartment was stuffed with thorns. Nay, I endured for a time the torments of the rack. Thank heaven! Miss Ashburn adopted my sense of the extravagant proposition, undertook to dissuade Sibella, and restored me once more to gaiety, courage, and happiness. Yes, Arthur, established in my former lodgings, courted, surrounded, congratulated by my former friends, I want but your society and the embraces of my divine girl to be the happiest of the happy. Thanks, Murden, for your silence on the subject of Mr. Valmont's threatened disposal of me. I am every where received like my former self. Oh! had I met one repulsive look, or supercilious brow, with--your servant, Mr. Montgomery--I surely should have run mad! Miss Ashburn knows it all, and I hate her most righteously. I allow that she is a fine woman, but her beauty is spoiled by her discernment. I wish Mr. Valmont would refuse Sibella Miss Ashburn's correspondence. The dear girl is already too eccentric. Yet could I now gaze on that lovely face, could I now clasp that enchanting unresisting form to my bosom! Had she ten thousand faults, I should swear they were all perfections. Murden! you never saw any one who can equal Sibella Valmont! Her charms cannot pall in possession. Ever a source of new desire, of fresh delight, adoration must ever be her lover's tribute!--Arthur, I will make her my wife.