It is true, Clara is said to be a coquette, but have not ladies of superior talents and attractions, at all times and in all countries been subject to that censure? unless indeed theirs was the rare fortune of becoming early in life attached to a man equal or superior to themselves! Attachments between such people last through life, and are always new. Love continues because love has existed; interests create interests; parental are added to conjugal affections; with the multiplicity of domestic objects the number of domestic joys increase. In such a situation the heart is always occupied, and always full. For those who live in it their home is the world; their feelings, their powers, their talents are employed. They go into society as they take a ramble; it affords transient amusement, but becomes not a habit. Their thoughts, their wishes dwell at home, and they are good because they are happy. But if on the contrary a woman is disappointed in the first object of her affections, or if separated from him she loved, fate connects her with an inferior being, to what can it lead? You might as well expect to confine a sprightly boy, in all the vigour of health to sedate inaction, as to prevent talents and beauty, thus circumstanced, from courting admiration. A feeling heart seeks for corresponding emotions; and when a woman, like Clara, can fascinate, intoxicate, transport, and whilst unhappy is surrounded by seductive objects, she will become entangled, and be borne away by the rapidity of her own sensations, happy if she can stop short on the brink of destruction. If Clara's husband had been in every respect worthy of her she would have been one of the best and happiest of human beings, but her good qualities were lost on him; and, though he might have made a very good husband to a woman of ordinary capacity, to Clara he became a tyrant. Sensible of the impossibility of her leaving him, he took it for granted that she bestowed on another those sentiments he could not hope to awaken himself. Yet Clara never deceived him. There is in her character a proud frankness which renders her averse to, and unfit for intrigue. When at the Cape, she was not dazzled by splendor, though it courted her acceptance; nor could the ill-treatment of her husband force her to seek a refuge from it in the arms of a lover who had the means of protecting her. At St. Jago his conduct became more insupportable, and when at length she fled from his house, alone and friendless, she was unseduced by love, but impelled by a repugnance for her husband which had reached its height, and could no longer be resisted. Delivered from the weight of this oppressive sentiment, she now enjoys a delightful tranquillity, which even the thought of many approaching struggles with difficulty and distress, cannot disturb.