I am a seducer, a mean, ungenerous seducer of unsuspecting innocence.

I dare not hope that purity like her's would stoop to unite itself with black, premeditated guilt: yet by heavens I swear, Belcour, I thought I loved the lost, abandoned Charlotte till I saw Julia--I thought I never could forsake her; but the heart is deceitful, and I now can plainly discriminate between the impulse of a youthful passion, and the pure flame of disinterested affection." At that instant Julia Franklin passed the window, leaning on her uncle's arm.

She curtseyed as she passed, and, with the bewitching smile of modest cheerfulness, cried--"Do you bury yourselves in the house this fine evening, gents ?" There was something in the voice! the manner! the look! that was altogether irresistible.

"Perhaps she wishes my company," said Montraville mentally, as he snatched up his hat: "if I thought she loved me, I would confess my errors, and trust to her generosity to pity and pardon me." He soon overtook her, and offering her his arm, they sauntered to pleasant but unfrequented walks.

Belcour drew Mr.Franklin on one side and entered into a political discourse: they walked faster than the young people, and Belcour by some means contrived entirely to lose sight of them.