akes a journey.
Surely there must be something particularly interesting to him in the
affair. The strange combination of circumstances terrifies and perplexes
me. Would I were delivered from this state of uncertainty! Would to God I
were dead!"

The uncertainty which afflicted her was however of a very short duration.
Miss Fletcher, by an inexhaustible train of interrogatories, led sir
William to relate by degrees every thing he knew of the affair. The young
gentleman his friend was the nephew and heir of Mr. Moreland. The present
match had been long upon the carpet, and was a very considerable one in
point of fortune. "Did the nephew ever visit Mr. Moreland?" "Very
frequently," said sir William. "And he is visited" interposed Delia, "by
other young gentlemen from the university?" "No," answered sir William.
"Mr. Moreland, who is an old batchelor, full of oddities and sensibility,
has a general dislike of young collegians. He thinks them pert, dissolute,
arrogant, and pedantic. He therefore never receives any but his nephew,
for whom he has the most ardent affection, and sometimes by particular
grace myself who am his intimate friend." "And how long is it since the
young gentleman paid a visit to his uncle?" Sir William looked a little
surprized at so particular a question, but answered: "He was here not
above a fortnight ago to invite his uncle to the wedding. But he is rather
serious and thoughtful in his temper, so that he is seldom seen in
public."

It was now but too certain that the friend of sir William, and the amiable
unknown, who had made a conquest of the heart of Delia, were the same
person. The surprise at which she was taken, and the unwelcome manner in
which her doubts were now at once resolved, were too much for the delicate
frame of our heroine. She sat for a moment gazing with an eager and
unmeaning stare upon the face of sir William. But she presently
recollected herself, and, bursting out of the room, flew to her chamber in
the same instant, and was relieved by a flood of tears.

Sir William was inexpressibly surprised at this incident. Delia, he was
sure, did not even know the name of his friend, and he could scarcely
imagine that she had ever seen him. Miss Fletcher, though considerably
astonished herself, gave sir William an account of so many particulars of
what had passed between his friend and our heroine, as were perfectly
sufficient to solve the difficulty. In return the baronet explained t