er so soon the reasonable arguments he had opposed to
this journey. Any evil, that might have attended their marriage, seemed
so inferior to those, which now threatened their love, or even to the
sufferings, that absence occasioned, that he wondered how he could have
ceased to urge his suit, till he had convinced her of its propriety; and
he would certainly now have followed her to Italy, if he could have been
spared from his regiment for so long a journey. His regiment, indeed,
soon reminded him, that he had other duties to attend, than those of
love.

A short time after his arrival at his brother's house, he was summoned
to join his brother officers, and he accompanied a battalion to Paris;
where a scene of novelty and gaiety opened upon him, such as, till then,
he had only a faint idea of. But gaiety disgusted, and company fatigued,
his sick mind; and he became an object of unceasing raillery to his
companions, from whom, whenever he could steal an opportunity, he
escaped, to think of Emily. The scenes around him, however, and the
company with whom he was obliged to mingle, engaged his attention,
though they failed to amuse his fancy, and thus gradually weakened the
habit of yielding to lamentation, till it appeared less a duty to his
love to indulge it. Among his brother-officers were many, who added
to the ordinary character of a French soldier's gaiety some of those
fascinating qualities, which too frequently throw a veil over folly, and
sometimes even soften the features of vice into smiles. To these men
the reserved and thoughtful manners of Valancourt were a kind of tacit
censure on their own, for which they rallied him when present, and
plotted against him when absent; they gloried in the thought of reducing
him to their own level, and, considering it to be a spirited frolic,
determined to accomplish it.

Valancourt was a stranger to the gradual progress of scheme and
intrigue, against which he could not be on his guard. He had not been
accustomed to receive ridicule, and he could ill endure its sting; he
resented it, and this only drew upon him a louder laugh. To escape from
such scenes, he fled into solitude, and there the image of Emily met
him, and revived the pangs of love and despair. He then sought to renew
those tasteful studies, which had been the delight of his early years;
but his mind had lost the tranquillity, which is necessary for their
enjoyment. To forget himself and the grief and anxiety, wh