"Edmund!" said Elvira seriously, "you deserve more than I can give you; for I will not insult you by supposing you would be satisfied with the possession of my crown without my heart;and that it is not in my power to bestow."

"My dearest Elvira, you but fancy this. I know your feelings are warm, your sensibility acute, and your generosity unbounded—can you then want a heart?"

"Alas, no! but I have discovered I possess one, only in time to know also that I have given it to another."

"And is that other a youth and a stranger?" asked her lover, gasping for breath.

"He is," replied Elvira, blushing, and looking down.

"Then, indeed, I am wretched!" cried Lord Edmund; and, striking his clenched hand vehemently against his forehead, he darted out of the room.

Elvira gazed after him with a feeling almost amounting to horror. Terrified at the strength of the passions she had awakened, she appeared