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But are those aware, who are anxious to find plausible excuses for delaying or omitting the fulfilment of the duties of charity, that the feelings of the human heart, though inflamed by casual restraint, are extinguished by a continued suppression? And wo be to that breast, in which the sentiments of benevolence and compassion are destroyed! The virtues of humanity, as they are those which most peculiarly belong to this present state of existence, so is the exercise of them most necessary to our individual happiness in this world; for he, whose heart has never melted at the sorrows of others, will assuredly, sooner or later, know the agony of seeking in vain for one sympathising bosom on which to repose the burden of his own.

Selina almost persuaded herself, that every clock and watch in the house was out of order, when Lady Eltondale asserted, that the hour was come for Fazani's raffle, which she had particularly patronized; and as, accompanied by the Viscountess and Sedley, Selina walked under the dark avenue, that led to that fashionable rendezvous, she could not help internally observing, "how much Mr. Sedley's vivacity and good-nature enlivened every society of which he was a member."

oeSCHOOL FOR SCANDAL.oe

Meantime Selina joined the Viscountess, while "disdain and scorn rode sparkling in her eyes." "Has Lady Hammersley been entertaining you with any sententious aphorisms?" asked Lady Eltondale. "No," replied Selina, laughing. "For once she has been talking on a subject she does not understand." The Viscountess was not sufficiently interested in her Ladyship's harangues to inquire further, and they continued their walk till it was time to separate for dinner.

The amusement allotted for that evening was a public concert, and Lady Eltondale and Selina had acceded to Sedley's earnest entreaty of attending it. He accordingly took post in the outside room, waiting for their arrival, and anxiously inspecting every passing groupe, as the different parties entered, in hopes of recognizing them. But his expectations were disappointed; no Lady Eltondale or Selina made their appearance: he bewildered himself in conjectures; and at last, in a moment of pique, attributing their delay to caprice, he left the rooms before the concert was finished, cursing woman's inconsistency, and his own folly, in ever having suffered himself to be interested about any. This sage reflection was however chased long before morning, not only by the recollection of Selina's manifold charms, but of his own manifold creditors; and at an early hour he repaired to the well, where he and Lady Eltondale had agreed to meet, in order to finish a conversation neither was particularly anxious Selina should witness.

But Lady Eltondale was not to be found; and when the hour for the general dispersion of the company arrived without his seeing her, he lost patience, and hastened to her house to inquire the cause of her protracted absence.

But there, to his utmost consternation, he learned that an express had arrived, just as the ladies were preparing to go to the rooms the night before, to inform the Viscountess, that Lord Eltondale had suddenly expired at Eltondale, after having partaken of a turtle feast with more enjoyment, and even less restraint, than ordinary. Of course neither Selina nor Lady Eltondale was visible, and Sedley returned home agitated by a thousand conjectures and emotions.

It was not to be expected, that Lady Eltondale would deeply lament the death of a husband, who, notwithstanding his uniform indulgence to her, had never possessed either her esteem or affection; but nevertheless Selina could not help being shocked at the total apathy and ingratitude she displayed; as without even assuming a grief, which it would have been almost more a virtue to dissemble, than thus openly to contemn, she only thought of, only lamented, the change of her circumstances the event would inevitably produce. Selina listened in astonishment to the calm retrospection of past extravagance, and the despairing anticipation of future poverty, in which she indulged even in those first moments of widowhood; and disdaining to offer consolation to the only sorrows she could hear unmoved, at an early hour retired to her own room.

There far, far different reflections agitated her bosom. There is a certain sympathy in misfortune, which, touching a chord that has once jarred, finds an echo in our own breast;

"Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows, Which show like grief itself."

Thus the sudden dissolution of Lord Eltondale recalled to Selina's mind all the circumstances of her father's death; and though neither in her judgment nor affection they could ever have been compared, yet the last sad scene of mortality blended her recollections of both, and with unrestrained tears she gave way to all the poignancy of regret, in the solitude of her chamber, which the freezing insensibility of Lady Eltondale would have repressed, in the presence of her who should have been the greatest mourner.

In the morning her swollen eyes and pallid cheeks bore testimony to her sleepless night; and as from Lady Eltondale she expected reproof rather than sympathy, she was not sorry to receive a message, stating that her Ladyship wished to breakfast alone, as she was engaged in writing letters.

It may be supposed this conversation made a deep impression on her mind; and one of the most painful feelings it excited was the insight it gave her into Lady Eltondale's selfish and dissembling character, confirmed as it was by her own previous observations. But even these feelings had not long power to withdraw her attention from that part of Lady Hammersley's communication which related to Frederick, and which was also corroborated by her recollection of several remarks and casual speeches of Lady Eltondale, which, at the time they were made, had seemed to her accidental and undesigned, but each of which, on retrospection, appeared "squared and fitted to its use." Nor did the circumstance of her deceased father having given his consent to the match serve, as with some romantic ladies it might have done, to determine her against it; on the contrary, it rather served to prejudice her in its favour; and a long train of reflections was concluded in her own mind by Lady Hammersley's observation, "So perhaps you cannot do better, provided your affections are not otherwise engaged."

Why she, even she-- Oh! Heav'ns! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn'd longer.

oeHAMLET.oe

Selina was thunderstruck at this address. She could scarcely recognise the calm, dignified Lady Eltondale, in the being convulsed with rage, that writhed beneath her steady gaze. In the contortion of uncontrolled passion, the veil had dropped, and the delusion vanished. A silence of a few moments ensued, and both the ladies recovered themselves; Selina to explain the condolences she had meant to offer as kindnesses, and Lady Eltondale to receive them with that degree of gratitude, she timely recollected it was most prudent to profess. And now,

"Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That in a spleen unfolds both Heav'n and earth,"

did the Viscountess reassume all her usual calmness, and more than her usual charms. Stretching out one white hand towards Selina, whilst she pressed the other on her forehead, "Forgive me, my love," exclaimed she, "this sudden misfortune has quite overpowered me. But you, Selina, I know will bear with me; you will not forsake me."

The delighted girl did not, however, pause to investigate the motives of the Viscountess's assent to her plan. With a little of the vivacity, which once had marked her every impression, did she now anticipate with fond delight her return to those beloved scenes of her happy infancy. Her heart beat high as in swiftest thought she pictured to herself being once more pressed to the maternal bosom of Mrs. Galton, and once more enjoying the calm unembittered pleasures of her earlier years. Overcome by the various emotions these thoughts gave birth to, she retired to her own room, to regain composure, and to write to persuade her dearest aunt to meet her there.

Accordingly, very early the following morning, she proceeded to obey Lady Eltondale's directions, having desired the steward, who professed to be well versed in such business, to meet her at the bank, in order to explain all that was necessary for her to do: she however needed no introduction, the wealth of the great Yorkshire heiress was too well known to require any confirmation; and on signing a paper which she scarcely looked at, she joyfully received the sum she desired, without stopping to calculate at what price the banker and the steward had agreed she was to purchase the accommodation.

But the delicacy of Selina's mind shrunk from the idea of encouraging an attachment she never meant to return; and scorning the little arts by which so many women gratify their own vanity, at the expense of those feelings which they seem to soothe, she steadily refused to give him any ground for expecting her to change her present sentiments: for within the last few days she had "communed with her own heart," and understood it better than she had ever done before. However her refusal though firm was gentle; and when Sedley parted from her at Lady Eltondale's door, the tempered smile that played on her lip, and the tear that gemm'd her eye, spoke so much of female softness and benevolence, that he departed more enamoured than ever; and, hastening home, shut himself up in his chamber, to indulge in a variety of schemes and reflections, which all concluded by his determining never to relinquish her pursuit, and by a natural consequence persuading himself his case was not yet desperate:

"None without hope e'er lov'd the brightest fair, But love will hope where reason would despair."

When Selina entered the drawing room, she found Lady Eltondale too much engrossed by her preparations for departure, to notice her protracted absence and agitated appearance. And when a few hours afterwards Selina actually found herself seated in the carriage, which was to convey her to her own home, her thoughts became so entirely occupied by painfully pleasing retrospection connected with it, that for a time all others faded from her mind. Orders had been dispatched for its being prepared for their arrival. And as they travelled but slowly, sufficient time was afforded for their execution. For the last few miles Selina preserved an uninterrupted silence, her whole attention being occupied in endeavouring to recognize every well known object; and as each succeeding tree, and cottage, and spire, met her view, a sentiment of pleasure, amounting almost to agony, oppressed her. At last, when the carriage turned up the long avenue, her feelings could no longer be repressed. She sobbed aloud, and concealed her face in her handkerchief, which she did not remove till she found herself pressed to the palpitating heart of Mrs. Galton, who having received Selina's letter when on a visit in Lancashire, had succeeded in anticipating her arrival by a few hours.

Thou yet shalt know how sweet, how dear, To gaze on beauty's glistening eye, To ask and pause in hope and fear, Till she reply.

oeMONTGOMERY.oe

The information thus conveyed to Lady Eltondale of Mr. Elton's attachment to a foreigner did not very much surprise her. She suspected that the reluctance he had expressed about two years before, to accept an honourable and lucrative employment in the diplomatical line, which his father had procured for him, and which had obliged him to leave Catania to reside in Paris--his subsequent return thither, and his protracted stay on the continent, had all proceeded from some such motive.

"When she entered the room where I was waiting in breathless expectation of her arrival, she was enveloped in the most icy coldness of manner, which, however, I was not dismayed by, but poured forth my love with all the ardour I felt. She changed colour many times, and was silent for a few moments; but when she did speak, rejected my addresses with such dignified politeness, and with so much calm self-possession, that, mortified to the very soul, I, without reply or remonstrance, walked out of the house. That I might hide my wounded feelings from every eye, I struck into a private path which led through a flower-garden Adelina's sitting-room opened into. I instinctively turned to look in, when I beheld her kneeling, evidently in the act of prayer, her eyes streaming with tears. To see her weep, and retain self-control or resentment, was impossible. I was at her side in an instant;--she started up, and endeavoured to fly, but I forcibly detained her; and as the expression of her countenance was not to be misunderstood as to the cause of her grief, I implored her not to destroy our happiness by harbouring any false impressions of me or my family; entreated her to tell me the impediments to our union, that if it were possible, by any exertion of mine, to do them away, they might cease to exist. She turned aside her head to hide the gushing tears, and in a faltering voice desired me to leave her.--'Leave me,' said she, 'only for a few moments, that I may recover composure to tell you all.'

"I respected her feelings sufficiently to remain in the garden till she made a sign to me to return.

"When I entered, grief, in her calmest attitude, was seated on her brow. No tear dimmed the majesty of her commanding eye, but a convulsive smile sometimes passed over her pallid lip. She told me that her father, though a German Baron, was a British subject by birth, but that some unfortunate circumstances induced him to condemn himself to perpetual exile from his native land; that she could not desert her duties by leaving him, in the evening of his days, to sad solitude in a foreign country; nor would she ever consent to obscure the morning of my life by suffering me, if I were so inclined, to quit my country, and leave my high calling unfulfilled, to waste my hours at her side in unavailing regret for my lost character: and addressing me with the utmost solemnity, said in conclusion, 'Frederick, if you really love me, as I think you do; if you are the noble being I believe you to be--you will not, after this meeting, try my feelings by any further solicitation. My resolution is unalterable--do not deprive me of my self-esteem, by making me feel the sacrifice I make to filial duty too painful.'

"I then told her, if she would promise to be mine when these obstacles to our union were at an end, I would wait in joyful thankfulness any length of time.

Here Lord Eltondale started up, and paced the room in an agony of feeling difficult to describe. Even Sedley was moved with compassion. "Poor fellow!" said he, in a suppressed tone, "And did you make no further attempt to change her resolution?" "I wrote several letters from Catania, and returned from Paris after my second visit there to see her once more, but the villa was deserted--Baron Wildenheim and his daughter had gone no one knew whither."

The first of these letters gave Sedley the most unequivocal proofs of Lady Eltondale's double-dealing, in speaking of Selina to Frederick as decidedly his future wife, at the very moment when she seemed to favour his own pretensions. He dashed the letters, one after the other, on the table, with a violence that made it resound, and internally imprecated "the treachery, the artifice, of this damned dissembling woman!"

On the other hand Sedley, passing at once from hope to despair, conceived it impossible Selina could refuse an offer so unexceptionable; and attributing her indifference to himself to her ambitious views, internally vowed revenge on both. The rival friends separated with feelings, which resembled only in their poignancy and defiance of control; and the next morning Lord Eltondale left London, pursuing, with agitated haste, his journey to Deane Hall.

Thou speak'st as if I would deny my name.

oeKING HENRY THE FOURTHoe.

And where meantime were Lord Osselstone and Mordaunt?--It may be recollected, that they had left London, previous to Lady Eltondale's great ball, on a tour to the continent--a journey which was not undertaken solely from motives of amusement. One of Lord Osselstone's brothers had many years previous to that period left England; and though the Earl had, by means of a mutual friend, a Mr. Austin, learned from time to time that he was still in existence, he had never succeeded in discovering his retreat; but for the last eighteen months he could learn no tidings whatever of his brother, as during that time Mr. Austin had been at the Madeiras with an invalide daughter; and as from some circumstances he was induced to think he might gain satisfactory intelligence on this subject at Vienna, he, accompanied by Augustus, proceeded thither for the purpose of procuring it.

The late Lord Osselstone had married twice. His first wife brought him two sons, namely, the present Earl, and Charles Mordaunt, father to Augustus. But his second lady, a German by birth, only one child, called Reginald, who, becoming an orphan at the age of sixteen, was left by his father to the sole guardianship of his eldest brother.

Reginald, as his mother's heir, inherited German estates of considerable value, which unfortunately deprived him of the happy necessity of applying the powers of his ardent mind to any determinate pursuit, and also made him an object of speculation to those vicious beings, that lie in wait for the unwary youth, who is sufficiently wealthy to recompense the trouble of destroying him.

Reginald rigidly kept his promise of for ever renouncing the gaming-table, giving, in the regularity of his conduct, the best proof of his lasting gratitude to his brother, and the most delightful reward that brother could receive for his almost paternal solicitude. Three years after this period, Reginald's regiment was ordered to Ireland, where he was stationed at Limerick. He admired, in turn, several of the beautiful women that place was then famous for; but finally fixed his affections on Rose O'Sullivan, the only child of the present proprietor of Ballinamoyle. This lovely girl was at that time entrusted to the care of an aunt, who resided at Limerick, her father being anxious to vary the retirement of her home, by what was to her, from the effect of comparison, a scene of extreme gaiety. Perhaps few women could have boasted of equal beauty, the effect of which was to Reginald rendered irresistible by the vivacity of her artless manners. Soon seeing her innocent partiality to himself expressed in her speaking eyes, any doubt he had before entertained of the expediency of proposing for her was set aside by this discovery.

When she returned home, he followed her to Ballinamoyle; and on the day in which she completed her seventeenth year, he received her hand, which her father gave with mingled joy and sorrow. Happily his regrets at resigning his idolized Rose were not rendered insupportable, by foreseeing that this act would for ever deprive him of his blooming child, and condemn her to an untimely grave!

In short, he was still more weary of instructing than she was of learning; and it would be difficult to say, whether pride or mortification predominated, when he came at last to the conclusion, that there was no reason why he should seclude himself from the world, because his wife was not sufficiently polished to be introduced to those brilliant circles of fashion, in which alone he would suffer her to move. The result of these deliberations was, his establishing himself in the most fashionable lodgings in town, leaving the young and lovely Rose to improve her mind, and "mend her manners," in almost total solitude.

The fascinations of her wit, the polished elegance of her manners, again bewitched him, and he indulged without restraint, though equally without design, in the dangerous pleasure of associating with her. He became a constant guest at Montague's table, flattering himself "there could be no impropriety in their intercourse--she was married, and so was he." The consequence of this renewed intimacy was the revival of their former attachment. His respect for the laws of honour, his regard for his friend, and some latent compassion, if not love, for his deserted wife, kept him for a short period hovering on the borders of virtue, sometimes slightly passing its bounds, sometimes retiring far within. But Mrs. Montague, led on by her passion for him, as well as an undefined mixture of good and evil in her natural disposition, revealed the plan her husband, in conjunction with her father, was following, to make him once more a victim to his former passion for gaming; for Mr. Montague's fortune and character were alike ruined by his connection with Mortimer.

Three months after they reached Hamburgh, the innocent, lovely Rose expired a few hours after giving birth to a daughter, whom almost in her last moments she presented, with smiles of anxious pity, to her unfortunate husband, saying, "Be consoled; my child will love you as I do. You are dearer to me now than ever. You have been but too indulgent;--I have lately repented of many trifling offences--forgive them when I am gone." Here exhausted, she paused for a few minutes; then once again addressed him: "Don't weep, Reginald; 'tis fitting I should die; my erring fondness would have injured this dear babe.--Comfort my poor father!" She feebly pressed his hand, and her dying accents murmured a half audible "Bless you!"

She was lovely in death! The clay-cold hand he with unutterable anguish pressed to his lips, mocked the statuary's art. The ministering angel who received her parting spirit, seemed to have shed celestial light on her countenance, whilst the bloom of earthly beauty yet lingered on her soft cheek and smiling lip. One dark lock lay on her alabaster bosom. Alas! motionless it lay--the warm heart had ceased to beat. Gaze, wretched Reginald, on thy heart's treasure! Soon shall the grave close for ever on all her charms! The despair of his soul, as he looked on her seraphic smile, and vainly watched to see her eye once more open with love's beam, was for a time lost in insensibility. When again, conscious that she was indeed no more, his agonized feelings led his mind to the very verge of frenzy.

In his first distraction, he wrote a letter of penitence and grief to his father-in-law, deploring his heart-rending loss, but omitting to state precisely, that this infant had survived her mother; and from the ambiguous expressions of this incoherent communication, the afflicted parent concluded, that Rose and her child had perished together. Irritated by the misery her loss occasioned him, Mr. O'Sullivan made no reply, sending only a notification by Father Dermoody, that it had been received, with a request that his feelings might not again be wounded by further correspondence with the man, whom he not unjustly accused of having shortened his daughter's days by his unworthy conduct.

Reginald had in this letter humbled himself as much as it was in his nature to do to mortal man; and indignant at the asperity of such a reply, he made no second attempt to move O'Sullivan to forgiveness. The ill success of this endeavour to soften the heart of the most benevolent of human beings discouraging him from any further efforts, either of atonement or conciliation, he adopted the resolution of withdrawing himself from the knowledge of all his connections. To his brother, Lord Osselstone, of all mankind he could least brook making any overtures, now that he was "fallen, fallen from his high estate." When he pictured to himself how he had disappointed that brother's exalted hopes and anxious cares, his pride and his better feelings alike prevented his submitting to receive either reproof from the austerity of his virtues, or that compassion from his affection, "which stabs as it forgives."

As a preparatory step to avoiding any future intercourse with his native land, he entreated his friend Mr. Austin to meet him, without delay, at Meurs, on the Belgic frontiers of Westphalia, near which his estates were situated, that by disposing of some of them, he might finally arrange his affairs, and discharge all his English debts. Mr. Austin immediately obeyed the summons, and found Reginald in a state of the utmost wretchedness, occupied with the wildest schemes for carrying his ideas into execution; proposing, with feverish restlessness, to fly for ever from civilized society, in order to join some tribe of Bedouin Arabs, Mamelucks, Tartars, or North American Indians. The counsels of this wise and judicious friend did much to bring back his erring mind, to submit to the calm dictates of reason. Mr. Austin combated, in turn, all these chimeras; opened his eyes to his duties as a father; and finally finding him unalterable as to his determination of concealment, suggested the most advisable means of carrying it into effect, which were, to avail himself of the facilities circumstances afforded for adopting the name and character of a German subject. From his mother, Reginald had learned to speak the language with the fluency of a native; and his friend now reminded him of a circumstance he had informed him of a week before his fatal elopement from London, which at that time he slighted, namely, that one of his estates, being part of an ancient feudal tenure, entitled him to the rank of Baron by its own appellation; the adopting which would not only procure him station amongst a people of all others the most tenacious on the subject of birth, but effectually conceal him, as the circumstance was yet unknown to all his English friends.

On hearing this proposition, Reginald with vehement joy, exclaimed, "Thank you, thank you, Austin; I shall know something like peace when my ears are not tortured by the detested name I now bear. Though I am outlawed because Osselstone was not in England to interfere with his powerful interest, though that damned Gazette has declared me for ever incapable of serving in the British armies, though it has stamped my name with indelible disgrace, yet will I cover this new appellation with fame in the field of glory."

Reginald accordingly availed himself of this expedient; and all legal forms prescribed by German jurisprudence being gone through, his daughter at the Chateau of Wildenheim was enrolled on the family records by the name of Adelaide, which was that borne by the last heiress of that house; her mother's finding too sad an echo in her father's bosom, to be heard or pronounced by him without the most afflicting feelings. All his estates, except the Barony of Wildenheim, were sold; and the surplus, which remained after discharging his various debts, was remitted to Vienna, where he repaired with his infant daughter, on parting with Mr. Austin. Here he felt himself completely alone in the world; and his feelings being too agonizing to render a life of inaction supportable, he entered the Austrian armies. His rank, his fortune, and his talents, soon procured him a command, which he filled with honour, and redeemed the promise he had made to cover his new appellation "with fame in the field of glory." Amongst the officers placed under his orders were Maurice O'Sullivan, the uncle of his wife, and Edward Desmond; he took a melancholy pleasure in serving the former with his purse and his interest, for the sake of his beloved Rose, and the virtues of the latter made Reginald no less zealously his friend; but from both he most carefully concealed his country and his parentage. They fought side by side at the battles of Hohenlinden, Rastadt, and other desperate engagements, that fatally signalized the disastrous campaign, which was concluded by the peace of Luneville. Reginald's remaining estate was unfortunately situated in the territory ceded by that treaty to France, and was by its new masters bestowed on a soldier of fortune. He was by this event reduced from affluence to mediocrity, and broken in fortune, health, and spirits, he proceeded to Vienna to visit his daughter, then in her sixth year. He found her as beautiful as a cherub, and the image of her mother. When she twined her arms round his neck, calling him by the endearing appellations infancy bestows, he felt that the world yet contained a being that would fondly cherish him; and remembered, with sad delight, what now seemed the prophetic words of his dying Rose, "Be consoled; my child will love you as I do."

When I am forgotten, as I shall be, And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention Of me must be heard--say then I taught thee.

oeKING HENRY THE EIGHTHoe.

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