t the Dictates of
Desire, than she did to create them ...yet she had it not in her
Power to feel any of those soft Emotions, those Impatiencies for his
Absence, those tender Thrillings in his Presence, nor any of those
agreeable Perplexities which are the unfailing Consequences of Love
...and she began, at length, to lay the Blame on her own want of
Sensibility, and to imagine she had not a Heart fram'd like those of
other Women."

At the house of a friend Anadea meets the Count de Blessure and feels
the starts of hitherto unsuspected passion. Beside this new lover the
Chevalier appears as nought. Her mind is racked by an alternation of
hope and despair.

"In Anxieties, such as hopeless Lovers feel, did the discontented
Anadea pass the Night:--She could not avoid wishing, though there was
not the least Room for her to imagine a Possibility of what she
wish'd:--She could not help praying, yet thought those Prayers a Sin.
--Her once calm and peaceful Bosom was now all Hurry and Confusion:--
The Esteem which she had been long labouring to feel for the
Chevalier, was now turn'd to Aversion and Disdain; and the
Indifference she had for all Mankind, now converted into the most
violent Passion for one ...she thought she could be contended to
live a single Life, and knew so little of the encroaching Nature of
the Passion she had entertained, that she believed she should never
languish for any greater Joy, than that she might, without a Crime,
indulge Contemplation with the Idea of his Perfections; and to destroy
that pleasing Theory by marrying with another ...was more terrible to
her than the worst of Deaths.--Confounded what to do, or rather wild
that there was nothing she could do that might be of Service to her in
an Exigence like this, her Mind grew all a Chaos, and the
unintermitting Inquietudes of her Soul not permitting any Repose, she
...had a very good Pretence to keep her Chamber, and receive no
Visits."

She passes the day in tormenting perplexities, sometimes relieved by
intervals of unsubstantial joy, when she fancies that her affianced may
break off the match for some reason, that his sickness, an accident, or
death may leave her free to wed Blessure. In imagination she pictures to
herself happy meetings with her lover, and even repeats their
conversation. Then recollecting her true situation, she lapses into real
woe and bitterness of heart. The Count, h