Page:Modern literature (1804 Volume 1).djvu/335

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one, which was to be on a Monday.—Saturday evening he was pensive and sad, and Maria was not joyful; both her brother and lover observed in her countenance and voice the softness of sorrow, while a forced cheerfulness concealed her emotions from her father. Having in the stillness and solitude of a night uninterrupted by sleep, given full vent to her tenderness, she was at the usual hour in the breakfast room, exhibiting marks of increasing dejection, which even her father must have discovered. Our hero directed to her the touching melancholy of his countenance; and she was almost overcome, when her father entering with an open letter, gave it to his daughter, saying, "Read that, my girl: by Jupiter it will be a merry year this; two jaunts in one summer." "Two jaunts," said his son. "Yes, your uncle Benjamin, instead of wintering in the West Indies as