the contrivances of the moment; even the sweet adulations of the fair sex were used to put me in spirits, but their presence only ript open the gash my bosom had received by the loss of my incomparable bride; and the faculty at last gave it as their opinion, that nothing but a temporary solitude would cure my distempered imagination, and all other means merely tend to plunge me into a state of incurable insanity.
Their advice was strictly adhered to; my senses gradually resumed their lost functions, though it seemed a matter of doubt, whether my emaciated frame would be able to bear the first keen shocks of new roused sensibility.
At last I got better, but a shade of settled melancholy characterized all my actions. The adventure of the forest was always present to my remembrance. I had become more considerate, and even somewhat timorous. Without any person, in whom I thought proper to place my confidence, I wavered indecisively from one resolve to another. Don Antonio, the friend of my youth, was certainly most tender to me, but not suffici-
