On the occasion of a masquerade at the Rotunda, her friends brought her to it. There can be no exhibition of far-gone wretchedness more striking and painful than to meet it in such a scene. To find it wandering like a spectre, lonely and joyless, where all around is gay—to see it dressed out in the trappings of mirth, and looking so wan and wo-begone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into a momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy crowd with an air of utter abstraction, she sat herself down on the steps of an orchestra, and looking about for some time with a vacant air, that shewed insensibility to the garish scene, she began, with the capriciousness of a sickly heart, to warble a little plaintive air. She had an exquisite voice but on this occasion it was so simple, so touching, it breathed forth such a soul of wretchedness, that she drew a crowd, mute and silent around her, and melted every one into tears. The story of one so true and tender could not but excite great interest in a country remark for enthusiasm. It completely won the heart of a brave officer who paid his addresses to her, and thought that one so true to the dead could not but prove affectionate to the living. She declined his attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably engrossed by the memory of her former lover.—He, however, persisted in his suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her conviction of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and dependant situation, for she was existing on the kindness of friends. In a word, he at length succeeded in gaining her hand, though with the solemn assurance that her heart was unalterably another’s. He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of scene might wear out the remembrance of early woes. She was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an effort to be a happy one; but nothing could cure the silent and devouring melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted away in a slow but hopeless decline, and at length sunk into the grave, the victim of a broken heart. Her sorrows are numbered—no longer she weeps, Every pang she endured is requited; With endless delight, and in silence she sleeps, For in death with her love she’s united. Like Sidney he died, but his mem’ry shall live In the bosoms of those who deplored him; And Pity her purest of dew-drops shall give To the sorrows of those who adored him. For he loved—was beloved—but alas! in his bloom, The ordeal of fate here sore tried him; And his spirit took flight from this world of gloom, To that glory which here was denied him.