My sister's rank and fortune equalled his expectations, her beauty gratified the pride of his connexions, and the endearing qualities of her mind and heart won their entire approbation and regard.

Their marriage was solemnized; and never was there a day of greater happiness, or one which opened more brilliant prospects for futurity.

De Courcy conveyed his bride immediately to a favorite estate, which he possessed in Provence, whither I was permitted to accompany them; and six months glided away, in the full enjoyment of that felicity which their romantic hopes had anticipated.

Winter approached, and your father was importuned to visit the metropolis, and introduce his young and beautiful wife to the gay and elevated station which she was expected to fill.
"Your mother, accustomed to retirement, and completely happy in the participation of its rational pleasures, with one whose taste and feelings harmonized entirely with her own, yielded, with secret reluctance, to her husband's wishes, and exchanged that peaceful retreat, for the brilliant, but heartless scenes of fashionable life.
The world was new to her, and no wonder if her unpractised eye was dazzled by the splendor of its pageantry.

She entered a magic circle, and was borne round the ceaseless course with a rapidity which threw a deceitful lustre on every object, and concealed the falseness of its colors.