to inconstancy. Let me hear from your own lips that you are changed. I but repeat your words, when once my letters failed to reach you—suspense, you then said, was torture: and will you now expose me to those sufferings which you even knew not how to endure? Let no one persuade you to treat her with cruelty, who, whatever your conduct may be, will never cease to honour and to love you.
"Forgive, if too presumptuous, I have written with flippant gaiety, or thoughtless folly. Say I have been to blame; but do not you, Glenarvon, do not you be my accuser. You are surrounded by those who possess beauty and talents, far, far above any which I can boast; but all I had it in my power to give, I offered you; and, however little worth, no one can bear to have that all rejected with contempt and ingratitude. And are they endeavouring to blacken me in your opinion? and do they call this acting
