Yes: they are many, my Caroline; various and increasing. Shall my uncle tell me that my actions are confined to the mechanical operations of the body, that I am an imbecile creature, but a reptile of more graceful form, the half finished work of nature, and destitute of the noblest ornament of humanity? Blind to conviction, grown old in error, he would degrade me to the subordinate station he describes. He daringly asserts that I am born to the exercise of no will; to the exercise of no duties but submission; that wisdom owns me not, knows me not, could not find in me a resting place. 'Tis false, Caroline! I feel within the vivifying principle of intellectual life. My expanding faculties are nurtured by the passing hours! and want but the beams of instruction, to ripen into power and energy that would steep my present inactive life in forgetfulness. Bonneville, when shall I cease to love thy memory, to recal thy lessons? It was thou, Bonneville, who first bade me cherish this stimulating principle; who called the powers of my mind forth from the chaos, wherewith Mr. Valmont had enveloped them. Thou, Bonneville, taught me that I make an unimpaired _one_ of the vast brotherhood of human kind; that I am a being whose mistakes demand the conviction of reason, but whose mind ought not to bow down under power and prejudice. He of whom I speak, Miss Ashburn, was chosen to be Clement's tutor. Can you conceive the sensations which swell within my breast while I recal the memory of this friend of my infancy? My friend, ere I lost Clement, ere I knew you, Caroline. Methinks I hear his voice; I see his gestures. Again, he enters the wood path. Again, I behold that countenance beautiful in age, radiant in wisdom.--He speaks. My soul hangs on his utterance. All my lesser affections fade away. Ah, no! no! no! Bonneville is gone for ever! Clement is torn from me! You are interdicted! and I am alone in the wood path! I hailed him by the name of father. He called me his child. He was enervated with disease. The chill damps of evening pierced him. The wintry blast shook his feeble frame. Still, would he endure the damps of evening, and tremble under the cold blast, rather than Sibella should be sunk in ignorance and sloth; for her cruel uncle had forbidden her an entrance into that apartment where Bonneville gave Clement his daily instruction.