sh that
she might soon be joined by the young American, who had occupied her
thoughts, both sleeping and waking, since she had parted with him on the
beach the evening previous. At the sound of every horse's feet she
started, and her heart beat quicker. But he came not that day, and as
evening approached, her disappointment became almost insupportable; she
tried to frame excuses for him; he had never been to the house; perhaps
he had, by a very natural mistake, gone to her uncle's house in town,
instead of that where she now was, and which was rather more than a mile
from St. Blas, and whither the family came regularly to lodge, though
they spent most of the time at their town residence; perhaps he was
detained on board by his duties; or he might be sick.

"And why," said the weeping girl to herself, "why should I wish to see
him again? Alas! I have already seen him too often, for my future peace
of mind. He is going home to his parents, his relatives, his friends,
his home, and perhaps to his wife;" and this last thought crossed her
mind with a feeling of peculiar anguish; "but no, when he spoke of his
friends and parents, he said nothing of his wife; but he is going, and
in a few short months he will forget that he has ever seen me, or that
such an unhappy being has ever existed."

With these painful and self-tormenting reflections she passed the
evening, and much of the night; but youthful hope, that cheers the heart
with flattering and deceitful promises, never sufficiently well defined
to resemble certainty, but always brilliant; hope, whose elasticity
raises the sinking heart, soothed and composed her spirits, and she sank
into sound and refreshing slumbers, to wake to a brighter and more
flattering day; but at the same time, to sink deeper and more
irrevocably into that bewitching, bewildering passion, whose existence
she could not now avoid acknowledging.

As she was sitting in the garden the next day, she was suddenly startled
by the approach of her two cousins in full chat, and close behind them,
Morton. Isabella seemed rooted to her seat, the light swam before her
eyes, her tongue was paralyzed, and her limbs were unable to raise or
support her. The young seaman approached, and in broken, incoherent, and
unintelligible accents, attempted to express the delight he felt at
once more seeing her. Perhaps, if the two cousins had been out of the
way; he would have acquitted himself better, perhaps not so well. "I