In the Press, OSMOND. A TALE, in 3 vols. 12mo. By the Author of "The Favourite of Nature." LONDON: ELIZA had now compassed her most sanguine wishes. Every step she took in her ascent towards happiness (at least what she called happiness) had been successful. Every obstacle was and three months engagement, with the man of her heart, had now afforded her time to judge, how far imagination and feeling are likely to be right, in their estimate of human felicity. overcome ; She had not merely supposed, for she had felt quite certain, that were she but released from her connexion with Mortimer, and receiving the addresses of Mr. Waldegrave, her sum of earthly bliss would be complete. She was released from her engagement with Mortimer, and she was receiving the addresses of Mr. Waldegrave: and was she happy? Alas! nohappiness was still to be sought. It did not lie in the fulfilment of her wishes; for even as the affianced wife of Mr. Waldegrave, Eliza was unhappy. The same restlessness of spirit haunted her still; and poisoned every prospect of happiness. If in her engagement with Mortimer, she had lamented her deficiency of affection for him, and had foreseen no possibility of passing her life happily with a person whom she only esteemed, she might now (could she have sufficiently divested herself of passion to reason upon the case) have seen the still less probability of enjoying any permanent comfort in an union with one, whom she passionately loved, indeed, but with all the inconsistency and variation of feeling, which commonly attend enthusiastic attachments. she An ingenious self-tormentor never could believe that Mr. Waldegrave loved her enough. Jealous to excess of his attention, even in the most trifling matters, she was seldom without finding or making an occasion for being displeased with him; and though lovers' quarrels are proverbially agreeable, yet they are, upon the whole, a very dangerous specific for the increase of affection, and Eliza, at the end of three months, began to tremble with the dread of having administered the dose a little too freely. It was true, Mr. Waldegrave still bore with her impatient temper without much resentment or complaint; though, at times, he was evidently provoked by her caprice. In the first instance, as a testimony of her unbounded affection for. him, it had been received with smiles, and soothed away with endearment. But, increasing with indulgence, he had. lately met it with argument more fr quently than caresses; and sometin' si with expressions of being vexed and teased by it, which would have been very alarming indeed to Eliza, if she had not persuaded herself that they were momentary of effusions irritation. Her situation, at this time, was very far from agreeable. Independently of the very few moments of tranquil happiness which she allowed herself to receive in the society of her lover, and the tempest of emotion which her continual quarrels and reconciliations with him so frequently excited, some new circumstances had befallen Miss Brooke, which, bestowing upon her much more power and importance, invested her at the same time with the ability and inclination of assuming a superiority, which rendered her to Eliza, and Eliza's pride, every thing that was opposite to a desirable friend and companion. Mr. Brooke, her father, had died in the West-Indies, and had left her the vhole of his immense property; uncerain, indeed, in its annual profits, but in |