ou anywhere--everywhere. Nothing can be
dreadful, but not seeing you; I would be a servant--a slave--a dog,
as long as I could be with you; hear one tone of your voice, catch one
glance of your eye. I scarcely see the paper before me, my thoughts are
so straggling and confused. Write to me one word, Falkland; one word,
and I will lay it to my heart, and be happy.

FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND TO LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. -------- Hotel, London.

I hasten to you, Emily--my own and only love. Your letter has restored
me to life. To-morrow we shall meet.

It was with mingled feelings, alloyed and embittered, in spite of the
burning hope which predominated over all, that Falkland returned to
E------. He knew that he was near the completion of his most ardent
wishes; that he was within the grasp of a prize which included all the
thousand objects of ambition, into which, among other men, the desires
are divided; the only dreams he had ventured to form for years were
about to kindle into life. He had every reason to be happy;--such is the
inconsistency of human nature, that he was almost wretched. The morbid
melancholy, habitual to him, threw its colourings over every emotion
and idea. He knew the character of the woman whose affections he had
seduced; and he trembled to think of the doom to which he was about to
condemn her. With this, there came over his mind a long train of
dark and remorseful recollections. Emily was not the only one whose
destruction he had prepared. All who had loved him, he had repaid with
ruin; and one--the first--the fairest--and the most loved, with death.

That last remembrance, more bitterly than all, possessed him. It will
be recollected that Falkland, in the letters which begin this work,
speaking of the ties he had formed after the loss of his first love,
says, that it was the senses, not the affections, that were engaged.
Never, indeed, since her death, till he met Emily, had his heart been
unfaithful to her memory. Alas! none but those who have cherished in
their souls an image of the death; who have watched over it for long and
bitter years in secrecy and gloom; who have felt that it was to them as
a holy and fairy spot which no eye but theirs could profane; who have
filled all things with recollections as with a spell, and made the
universe one wide mausoleum of the lost;--none but those can understand
the mysteries of that regret which is shed over every after passion,
though it be more burn