too proud in virtue to palter and equivocate with circumstances. She
never rose from what she deemed her bridal bed. And ere twenty summers
had fanned her cheek, the grave-worm banqueted upon its loveliness.

This was my _first_ crime. The recollection of it is engraven upon
my memory by an awful catastrophe. The night wind that sung _her_
funeral dirge, howled with dismal fury through the burning ruins of my
paternal mansion. Yes! that very night, as if it were in mercy to them,
my father and my mother both perished in the flames which reduced
the house itself to cinders. They were seen at the windows of their
bedchamber, shrieking for aid; but before any could be procured, the
flooring gave way, and they sunk at once into the yawning furnace that
roared beneath. Their remains, when afterwards dug out, were a few
shovelsfull of blackened ashes; except my father's right hand, which was
found clasped in that of my mother, and both unconsumed. I followed
these sad relics to the sepulchre. But with the tears I shed, there was
blended a feeble consolation at the thought they had died before they
knew the fate of Harriet; and a frightful joy, that another pang was
added to the wretchedness of my uncle.

I can well remember what a feeling of loneliness and desolation now took
possession of me. Time, however, rolled on; and I grew callous, if not
reconciled. I could not disguise from myself that the more select
circles of society were closed against me; or, if I found my way into
them, some blushing whisper was quickly circulated, which created a
solitude around me.

It was during this period, and while I was squandering thousands to
achieve the conquest of shadows, that I succeeded in fixing an intimacy
with a family equal to my own in station, and superior to it in fortune.