and the moon (what scene of love--whether in reality, or
romance--has any thing of tenderness, or passion, or divinity, where her
light is not!) filled the intense skies of June with her presence, and
cast a sadder and paler beauty over Gertrude's cheek. She was always of
a melancholy and despondent temper; perhaps, for that reason, she was
more congenial to my own; and when I gazed upon her that night, I was
not surprised to see her eyes filled with tears. 'You will laugh at me,'
she said, as I kissed them off, and inquired into the cause; 'but I feel
a presentiment that I cannot shake off; it tells me that you will travel
this road again before many months are past, and that I shall not
be with you, perhaps not upon the earth.' She was right in all her
foreboding, but the suggestion of her death;--that came later.

"We took up our residence for some time at a beautiful situation, a
short distance from a small watering place. Here, to my great surprise,
I met with Tyrrell. He had come there partly to see a relation from whom
he had some expectations, and partly to recruit his health, which was
much broken by his irregularities and excesses. I could not refuse to
renew my old acquaintance with him, and, indeed, I thought him too much
of a man of the world, and of society, to feel with him that particular
delicacy, in regard to Gertrude, which made me in general shun
all intercourse with my former friends. He was in great pecuniary
embarrassment--much more deeply so than I then imagined; for I believed
the embarrassment to be only temporary. However, my purse was then, as
before, at his disposal, and he did not scruple to avail himself
very largely of my offers. He came frequently to our house; and poor
Gertrude, who thought I had, for her sake, made a real sacrifice in
renouncing my acquaintance, endeavoured to conquer her usual diffidence,
and that more painful feeling than diffidence, natural to her station,
and even to affect a pleasure in the society of my friend, which she was
very far from feeling.

"I was detained at--for several weeks by Gertrude's confinement. The
child--happy being!--died a week after its birth. Gertrude was still
in bed, and unable to leave it, when I received a letter from Ellen, to
say, that my mother was then staying at Toulouse, and dangerously ill;
if I wished once more to see her, Ellen besought me to lose no time in
setting off for the continent. You may imagine my situation, or rathe