Soon after the ladies left her, she received a message from Henry, requesting, as she saw company, to be permitted to visit her:  she consented, and he entered immediately, with an unassured pace.  She ran eagerly up to him—­saw the tear trembling in his eye, and his countenance softened by the tenderest compassion; the hand which pressed hers seemed that of a fellow-creature.  She burst into tears; and, unable to restrain them, she hid her face with both her hands; these tears relieved her, (she had before had a difficulty in breathing,) and she sat down by him more composed than she had appeared since Ann’s death; but her conversation was incoherent.

She called herself “a poor disconsolate creature!”—­“Mine is a selfish grief,” she exclaimed—­“Yet; Heaven is my witness, I do not wish her back now she has reached those peaceful mansions, where the weary rest.  Her pure spirit is happy; but what a wretch am I!”

Henry forgot his cautious reserve.  “Would you allow me to call you friend?” said he in a hesitating voice.  “I feel, dear girl, the tendered interest in whatever concerns thee.”  His eyes spoke the rest.  They were both silent a few moments; then Henry resumed the conversation.  “I have also been acquainted with grief!  I mourn the loss of a woman who was not worthy of my regard.  Let me give thee some account of the man who now solicits thy friendship; and who, from motives of the purest benevolence, wishes to give comfort to thy wounded heart.”

“I have myself,” said he, mournfully, “shaken hands with happiness, and am dead to the world; I wait patiently for my dissolution; but, for thee, Mary, there may be many bright days in store.”

“Impossible,” replied she, in a peevish tone, as if he had insulted her by the supposition; her feelings were so much in unison with his, that she was in love with misery.

He smiled at her impatience, and went on.  “My father died before I knew him, and my mother was so attached to my eldest brother, that she took very little pains to fit me for the profession to which I was destined:  and, may I tell thee, I left my family, and, in many different stations, rambled about the world; saw mankind in every rank of life; and, in order to be independent, exerted those talents Nature has given me:  these exertions improved my understanding; and the miseries I was witness to, gave a keener edge to my sensibility.  My constitution is naturally weak; and, perhaps, two or three lingering disorders in my youth, first gave me a habit of reflecting, and enabled me to obtain some dominion over my passions.  At least,” added he, stifling a sigh, “over the violent ones, though I fear, refinement and reflection only renders the tender ones more tyrannic.

“I have told you already I have been in love, and disappointed—­the object is now no more; let her faults sleep with her!  Yet this passion has pervaded my whole soul, and mixed itself with all my affections and pursuits.—­I am not peacefully indifferent; yet it is only to my violin I tell the sorrows I now confide with thee.  The object I loved forfeited my esteem; yet, true to the sentiment, my fancy has too frequently delighted to form a creature that I could love, that could convey to my soul sensations which the gross part of mankind have not any conception of.”