who rejected his offers as to bring.any imputation on his good sense. He was also an affectionate, attentive son, and was generally spoken of as so likely to convey happiness with rank and fortune, that the offer of his hand would. not have been rejected except by one who had romantically pondered on the faultless image of perfection till she fell in love with Lord Avondel.

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CHAP. VII.

"Indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'er-hanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire, why it appears no other thing to me than a foul pestilential congregation of vapours. Man delighte

Not me, nor woman neither."

SHAKESPEARE.

BEING, like my heroine, much attached to what is mysterious and sublime, I must now abandon all other characters and attend Lord Avondel to his paternal mansion.

Nature had formed the mind of this nobleman in one of her most capacious moulds, and all who saw him early in

life pronounced him born alike for honourable celebrity and domestic felicity. He had just obtained possession of his estate when he became attached to a lady, whose merit and beauty counterbalanced the objection which his friends might form to the smallness of her fortune; and this was still further obviated by her prudence and retired habits. Their union was determined upon, the day was fixed, and the earl set out for Avon Park to prepare for the reception of his bride. The separation was to be very short, and the intended bridegroom indulged in all those dreams of perfect felicity which a marriage, contracted under the happiest auspices, could suggest to a sanguine temper, animated by a strong attachment to a lovely amiable object. Such was Lord Avondel's situation, when he received a letter from the woman he thus idolized, to tell him.

this dream of happiness was at an end, that she was imperiously compelled to renounce him for ever; and that as she should never see or hear from him more, she called upon him, as he valued his honour and his peace, to forget her, and from that moment consider himself liberated from a most unhappy engagement. He hastened to her residence; it had been only a temporary one. She and her servants were gone, and had left no clue to discover her retreat. Her letter seemed to be dictated by the deepest anguish of mind, but whether it were the anguish of guilt or of sorrow he knew not. It was a dreadful mystery, but it still remained an undiscovered one, as from that moment he had neither seen nor heard of her proceedings or abode.

A disappointment so unexpected, so inexplicable, stamped an indelible impression on Lord Avondel's character.

But a

To petrifying surprise succeeded the deepest dejection. Somewhat of indignation, however, mingled with his regret. Among the various unfounded conjectures to which this incident gave birth, envy and censoriousness circulated a report, that passion had transgressed the bounds of virtue, and compelled the lady to a temporary retirement. Conscious of innocence, Lord Avondel silently left the improbable calumny to refute itself. thought shot across his mind :—could that angel countenance, where purity seemed to sit blushing at her own attractions, be indeed the vizor of specious blandishment, the treacherous appendage of a polluted person and contaminated soul? and was this obscure elopement the impulse of contrition, or the stern injunction of necessity, shuddering at impending discovery, and fearing to plunge into agA