and he was invited to our villa.

"Mr. Sackville was not only the most interesting man I had ever seen,
but the most accomplished, and his heart seemed the seat of every
graceful feeling. He was the first man for whose society I felt a
lively preference. I used to smile at this strange delight, or
sometimes weep; for the emotions which agitated me were undefinable,
but they were enchanting, and unheedingly I gave them indulgence. The
hours which we passed together in the interchange of reciprocal
sentiments, the kind beaming of his looks, the thousand sighs that he
breathed, the half-uttered sentences, all conspired to rob me of
myself.

"Nearly twelve months were spent in these delusions. During the last
three, doubts and anguish displaced the blissful reveries of an
infant tenderness. The attentions of Mr. Sackville died away. From
being the object of his constant search, he then sedulously sought to
avoid me. When my father withdrew to his closet, he would take his
leave, and allow me to walk alone. Solitary and wretched were my
rambles. I had full leisure to compare my then disturbed state of
mind with the comparative peace I had enjoyed in my own country.
Immured within the palace of Villanow, watching the declining health
of my mother, I knew nothing of the real world, the little I had
learned of society being drawn from books; and, uncorrected by
experience, I was taught to believe a perfection in man which, to my
affliction, I since found to be but a poet's dream. When my father
took me to Italy, I continued averse to public company. In such
seclusion, the presence of Sackville, being almost my only pleasure,
chased from my mind its usual reserve, and gradually and surely won
upon the awakened affections of my heart. Artless and unwarned, I