made to appear chearful in his chearful in his presence, only served to prove how far all chearfulness was banished. While these sentiments were passing in the breasts of the father and daughter, the artful Moraldi was laying deep plots for their ruin, and his own success. To have made an honourable tender of his hand to Eloise, lovely and amiable as she was, would have been absurd! What! the handsome, the noble, the admired di Albenza, deprive himself of liberty, shackle himself for life to an obscure girl, whom a little address and perseverance would easily obtain on his own terms: or, embarrassed and inpoverished as he was, matrimony must be the last resource of his necessities. Still he continued his visits at the cottage; and while he lamented his hard fate, (which, as di Marinari, bound him a dependant on the will of a capricious father,

C 2

father,) he increased in his vows of adoration and attachment. De Cleance, who was no stranger to all that passed, and who every day grew more weak and infirm, did not discourage their meetings, because, in all the fondness of a partial parent, he trusted the beauty and merits of his daughter would at length secure her a protector in the man he distinguished and esteemed, and in whom he constantly discovered fresh and unequivocal proofs of affection towards her. While de Cleance lived, however, Moraldi was well aware Eloise never could be his; for poor and reduced as was his condition, he knew his soul to be the proud seat of honour, and that the almost expiring embers of latent courage, would be rekindled to punish the betrayer of his child. He was the more fully convinced of this; for, after passing a whole

whole morning in the company of Eloise, he was met on his departure at the door by de Cleance, who, when he had coolly and dispassionately represented the impropriety there would be in a continuance of his present conduct, ingenuously told him, that he must either desist from his visits, or pub licly and openly avow his motives for proceeding in them. Moraldi, unprepared for the attack, and entirely thrown off his guard by the decisive. manner of de Cleance, cast his eyes onthe ground, and was at a loss for a reply; then muttered something about "his respect for him, his admiration of Eloise, his wishes, his attachment ;but he went no further; his answer was cowardly and evasive; and at the moment truth and conviction flashed on the high mind of de Cleance, he spurned

c. 3

spurned him from his dwelling in silence and contempt.

66

my

He is unworthy of you, child, my darling!" exclaimed the generous father, as he clasped the sorrowing Eloise to his bosom; he is a villain! has betrayed my confidence, has deceived you! yet still I thank Thee, Providence," he added, while a ray of transient pleasure lightened up his pensive aspect," that though I die the victim of perfidy and duplicity, I am still deceived, I never was the deceiver!" He was a villain! but alas! this was no balm to the wound that villainy had inflicted; nor had the sober admonitions of reason, power to efface impressions, nursed in solitude and retirement by a generous and enthusiastic mind; her love was as unalterable as it had been pure and sincere,

and

and the consciousness of her lover's falsehood, only served to add venom to the canker which was daily feeding on the sap of her existence. In the interim, Moraldi was actuated by every feeling of rage and mortification; and to that passion, which opposition had but tended to increase, was now added hatred and indignation towards de Cleance, whom he viewed as the insurmountable barrier between him and his wishes; and with a diabolical resolution, which was strengthened by the advice of his infamous servant and tool Corvino, he determined to rid himself at once, of the man whose kindness and hospitality were both sunk in the idea that he had dared to chastise and frustrate his designs. An exile; and a foreigner, who would revenge his cause, or discover his assassin? Eloise would be his prize, and C 4

a sum