the time flipt fo imperceptibly away with this little party, that though their converfation was not relieved by one word of scandal, nor enlivened by any of the news of the village, the clock announced the hour of dinner before they thought of separating : nor would they have done fo then, but for the fake of Mifs Sydney, who was at home alone. The old gentleman, whofe temper made every thing easy to him, would foon have been prevailed upon to accept of Dr. Orwell's cordial invitation, but Henry, who knew the disappointment it would give his fifter, and was too just and too generous to inflict a moment's pain on another for the fake of his own gratification, was peremptory in his refufal. On going thro' the garden, which afforded a nearer way to the house of Mr. Sydney, Dr. Orwell pointed out to his friends fome improvements he had lately planned. "And all this," fays he, "fhould have been done this fummer, fummer, but for the folly of my daughter Harriet, who has fuch a ftrange fancy for that good-for-nothing bush," (pointing to a mofs-rose tree, which grew in the middle of a small plat) "that I was filly enough, at her intreaties, to put it off till another feafon." No chromatic air ever raised such soft emotions in the breast of any Grecian youth, as those words of Dr. Orwell's excited in the heart of Henry. That rofetree, he had, fome time previous to his laft departure for college, planted with his own hands. The charge of rearing it he had given to Harriet, and the pretence of feeing how it throve had given occafion for many a delightful tête-à-tête. His eyes now met hers--need we tell the reader they were both fufficiently expressive? CHAP. CHAP. XII. "When I fee such games "Play'd by the creatures of a Power, who fwears "And when I weigh this feeming wisdom well, WHILE the daughter of Dr. Orwell was enjoying the happiness with which the return of Henry Sydney had inspired her breast, a happiness rendered doubly dear by the approving smiles of her refpected parent; emotions of a less placid nature agitated the fair bosom of her fifter beauty. In the breaft of Julia Delmond all was turbulence and perturbation. VOL. I. I bation. While following the course of an unreined imagination, the experienced that deluding fpecies of delight, which rather intoxicates than exhilarates, and which, by its inebriating quality, gives to the fanguine votary of fancy a disrelish for the common enjoyments of life; the eagerness with which her mind grafped at the idea of an extraordinary ecstatic felicity, agitated her whole frame, and deprived her of peace and reft. Still fhe pursued the flattering dream of fancy, and kept her mind's eye fo fixt upon its airy vifions, that she at length believed in their reality, and what appeared at first the mere fuggeftion of imagination, feemed in the fequel the certain dictates of truth. That in General Villers Mr. Vallaton fhould find a father, at first seemed barely poffible; then probable; then more than probable; it was next to certainty, or rather certainty itself. All All that now remained was to find means for effecting the discovery in a manner the most striking and pathetic. For this purpose she called to her remembrance all the fimilar events in her most favourite novels; in thefe inftructive books the discovery of the hero's parents had always appeared to her a catastrophe particularly interesting, and the idea that she should now have it in her power, not only to witnefs, but to be a principal actor in fo tender a scene, filled her heart with ecftacy. After much deliberation, fhe at length fixed upon a moft delightful plan for introducing Vallaton to the house of his long-loft parents; but as part of it depended on the indulgence of her father, fhe found it neceffary immediately to procure his confent to its execution. In order to conceal the agitated state of her mind, fhe had, on pretence of indifpofition, abfented herself from breakfast, |