rously refusing to take any advantage of that inexperienced heart which you must have discovered has long been yours."

The misery which Lord Avondel had suffered from female fickleness induced Miss Mandeville to be thus frank in her declaration, and the warmth and elegance of Lord Avondel's acknowledgements prevented her from reproaching herself with having gone too far."Suffer me, my Emily," said he, "to plead the right of a long attachment, by urging you to name an early day to confirm my title to so great a treasure. I have been used to celerity in the arrangements of impor tant transactions, and I will undertake to expedite every necessary preparation. As to settlements, my part is easy. I have only to sign such deeds as your counsel will think fit to prepare. If, however, they are dictated

by your generous uncle, I shall claim a right to object to them, should they lay me under too oppressive obligations." Emily was too humble a mistress to wish to prolong the reign of female power. She referred her lover to Sir Walter, with a confidence, she said, that her honour and fortune were safe in their care.

One of the happy circumstances which resulted from this conversation was, that Miss Mandeville felt herself at liberty to unbosom her whole heart to Lady Selina, to whom an unac: countable connection of improbabilities had lately made her be reserved. She immediately took her pen, and called for her aunt's congratulations on her approaching marriage to a man of rank and birth superior to her own, and superior also to the whole world in every noble, estimable, and engaging quality. "Can you," said she, "be

lieve that your little foolish, fearful niece, destitute of every shining talent, and only made remarkable by the adventitious gifts of fortune, has really secured to herself for the protector and guide of her future life a nobleman on whose mind avarice and vanity never made the least impression; who has seen the beauties of every court and climate without being made a slave by their blandishments, and who really thinks an artless, well-intentioned girl a suitable alliance to unparalleled magnanimity and unblemished fame. Yes, my dear aunt, this is the object on whom I told you my affections were highly set. He has proved the reality and strength of my affection, but he has proved it in a manner equally honourable to his generosity and soothing to my delicacy. I feel dignified by the preference which I cherished, and his esteem has given

But where was she for whom he had formed this paradise of rural bliss, the Eve who should have walked in these groves? He blamed himself for conforming to that rigid injunction of offended honour which had forbade him to inquire her fate. She might be innocent, faithful, wretched; requiring his assistance, bewailing his neglect. If the strange impediment

to which he had alluded were removed -No, impossible! Her letter told him the bar was eternal. Wandering through his plantations he endeavoured to believe the soothing predictions of Shenstone;

The shrub and the bower and the tree,
Which I rear'd for her pleasure in vain,
In time may have comfort for me.

He returned to the saloon, threw himself on a sofa, gazed on the border which she had painted, and the chim

to reside. You shall not deny my request on pain of my employing a resistless pleader, who has governed courts and animated senates, guided the statesman to wisdom and the soldier to victory. Nor will I allow that your resolution of hiding your virtues from the world ought to be more durable than my determination of continuing single, and living with you at Lime Grove, never allowing any one to dispute your claim to the first place in the affections of your still fondly attached and ever grateful niece Emily Mandeville."..

By way of breaking the tedium of uninterrupted narrative, and to shew the world what epistolary treasures are in my possession, I shall chiefly fill this chapter with some of the correspondence which passed on this occasion. The next letter is from the Marquis of Glenvorne.