will miss the love of the only man whose affection she could have returned, and will spend her desolate and uncomforted age in mourning over the vanished triumphs which were her sole happiness, but which can never return; or else, just as she suspects that her light is beginning to wane, she will allow the most abject of her admirers, after numberless petitions, to swear himself her slave for life. But when he humbly encircles her taper finger with the golden round, the twain will change places. All the chains with which Amanda has manacled others will seem gathered together, and their weight heaped upon her own spirit; all the arrows she has sped will fly back and transfix her own heart. She will find the slave of yore transformed into the most unsparing of tyrants, and the dethroned sovereign will hopelessly sink into the humblest, dullest, most dejected of captives.
Hearken, fair Amanda, and be warned! Surrender at discretion! Lay down thine arms at the feet of some worthy suitor, yield thyself up trustingly to his mercy, and escape either destiny predicted.
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