another, then in America,
whither I attended him.

My father's affairs were, at that time, in a situation, which
determined my uncle to take the first opportunity of marrying me to
advantage.

I regarded him as a father; he had always been more than a parent to
me; I had the most implicit deference to his will.

He engaged me to Sir George Clayton; and, when dying, told me the
story of my birth, to which I had till then been a stranger, exacting
from me, however, an oath of secresy till I saw my father.

He died, leaving me, with a trifle left in trust to him for my use
from my grandfather, about two thousand pounds, which was all I, at
that time, ever expected to possess.

My father was then thought ruined; there was even a report of his
death, and I imagined myself absolute mistress of my own actions.

I was near two years without hearing any thing of him; nor did I
know I had still a father, till the letters you brought me from Mrs.
Melmoth.

A variety of accidents, and our being both abroad, and in such
distant parts of the world, prevented his letters arriving.

In this situation, the kind hand of heaven conducted my Rivers to
Montreal.

I saw him; and, from that moment, my whole soul was his.

Formed for each other, our love was sudden and resistless as the
bolt of heaven: the first glance of those dear speaking eyes gave me a
new being, and awaked in me ideas never known before.

The strongest sympathy attached me to him in spite of myself: I
thought it friendship, but felt that friendship more lively than what I
called my _love_ for Sir George; all conversation but his became
insupportable to me; every moment that he passed from me, I counted as
lost in my existence.

I loved him; that tenderness hourly increased: I hated Sir George, I
fancied him changed; I studied to find errors in a man who had, a few
weeks before, appeared to me amiable, and whom I had consented to
marry; I broke with him, and felt a weight removed from my soul.

I trembled when Rivers appeared; I died to tell him my whole soul
was his; I watched his looks, to find there the same sentiments with
which he had inspired me: that transporting moment at length arrived;
I had the delight to find our tenderness was mutual, and to devote my
life to making happy the lord of my desires.

Mrs. Melmoth's letter brought me my father's commands, if unmarried,
to continue so till his return.

He added, that he intended me for a relation