I once saw one of them.'---'Where is the doubt?'---Somehow my

'I had rather you would not ask me. heart sinks; and I am all in a flutter, when you talk about it!'

"This raised my curiosity tenfold: yet I saw that I must use great management to get this mystery explained. I again put the question, in a tone of mild persuasion, when she darted a fierce look at me, and cried earnestly, 'Why do you want to know?' I began to fear that I had raised some suspicion in her, and had thus closed the channel of intelligence. I replied in as conciliating a voice as I could use: 'I once knew a family of that name; and I was anxious to discover if they had any alliance to your relations!' The two last words operated like a charm on her pride and vanity; and her fierce looks relaxed into benevolence and respect. Ah, Sir!' she said: 'I am a very foolish old woman; and, sometimes, I must own, am a little superstitious, which I know you great gentlemen are apt to make a jest of; but the truth is, Sir, I think I once did see one of the family; or else I saw a ghost; 't was so staring like 'em!'---' Why, how do you know their countenances? They were all dead, or gone away, long before you was born!

"O Sir!' she eagerly rejoined, thereby hangs a tale! Till within these thirty years, there was a long gallery, which formed a wing of that ruinous old mansion yonder; and along the sides of it, as thick as they could be placed, hung all the pictures of the family for one hundred and fifty years; and it

is singular that in all of them, especially in some celebrated Beauties, the family countenance was so marked, that whenever it appeared, it could not be mistaken by an observant eye. The late Lord ---- pulled down the gallery; and such was his hatred to antiquity, and especially of a family of whom he wished to extinguish all traces, that he had all the pictures brought out on the green, and burnt to ashes in his presence. Cruel, barbarous, brutal man! I wish the picture of the old scoundrel steward, his grandfather, had been there: I would have rescued it from the fire, at the hazard of my life, to shame him!'

"But where then did you see the likeness of these family portraits, which were impressed so strongly on your memory?'---'O Sir, I shudder while I tell! But, I think, I saw it within these three weeks, in this very parish! One evening, after my work was done, I had walked to market at the neighbouring town; and it was ten at night before I got home. As I crossed the corner of the church-yard, two young ladies met me. The moon shone upon their faces, and one of them was so like the pictures in the old gallery, that I shrieked, and fainted; and when I recovered again, they were vanished; and all was silence, and vacancy."

"But are there not some ladies in the neighbourhood, who might accidentally be walking there; and cause this mistake ?---- None of the kind, Sir! They were not the least like our farmers' daughters, though they are inclined of late to dress themselves

out so smart: and as to that new Lord, and all his family; all the breed of them still retain their tinker faces: for the old steward was the son of a tinker in this very parish! I will stake my life it was one of the true family; or else a ghost!'

"But, have you ever heard that there are any of the true family now existing, that would answer this description ?'---' I rather think I have; but not of the name!'---'By what name then?'-' I cannot tell. There was one of the girls of the family, married, I think, some Lord's brother, or cousin; and was unfortunate! I have not heard of her, of a long time: but it was rumoured, she could live but privately, having lost her husband; and that the new lord here had done her a grudge, lest she should rise up, and claim the property, to which they say the title is not yet good.'--' Did they ever notice you?'---'No: they have lost all traces of me; and, I dare say, do not know that such a poor forlorn being lives!'---' Have you made no enquiries since?'---'I dare not make enquiries: nobody will tell me any thing; and they only jeer me, if I give the most distant hint, that has any relation to my family!'

"Here my questions ended; and I hastened to quit the cottage: for there was something in the close of her answers, which inflamed my curiosity, and gave rise to a mixture of indistinct hopes and fears, that made my heart palpitate, and my whole frame thrill. I proceeded with caution to seek intelligence in the village; and found that some ladies answering the description of the old woman, had sojourned a day

or two in this place during my illness. Little was known about them; but they had been busy in enquiring about the old mansion, and examining the parish register, which was kept in the church chest ; and of which they had procured a sight through the clerk.

66

Nobody knew whither these ladies had gone; and I sent my groom to the next post town, to endeavour to discover their direction. He brought back very doubtful intelligence, that a party seeming in some degree to answer the description I had given, had crossed the country westward. My heart danced at this imperfect clue; and I resolved to mount my horse, and journey the same way. My servant remonstrated; and assured me that my strength was yet too feeble for such an attempt. My own feelings too decisively confirmed this advice. I submitted to wait another week; and then set off again with a beating heart on my search.

"Expectation kept up my spirits; and I rode an hundred miles with little fatigue. On the sixth day I began to hope that I had crossed on the track of the fair travellers. A carriage containing a lady and her two daughters, had arrived the preceding evening at the inn where I took up my abode, and left it early that morning. A growing enthusiasm made. me seek out the room where they had sate, and the room in which they had slept. I fondly flattered myself, I might find some relic, some fragment of their writing, or some particle of their dress, which

might put me out of suspence, and be deposited in my bosom as a charm against my uneasiness. What, I thought, would I give for such a prize.

"Yet I could not bring myself to prostitute the hallowed name of Julia; or to ask questions of the waiter or the chambermaid, which might subject her to the possibility of familiar or impertinent remarks. This formed a bar to much of the intelligence, which I might otherwise have extorted.

"I had nearly despaired, when I rescued from the drawer of the bed-room glass, a torn fragment of paper, from whence I deciphered, after a long exertion of patient industry, the following lines, written in almost obliterated pencil marks.

"To hover o'er the bed of death,

Where Genius, with expiring eyes,
Struggles to keep the parting breath,
And send the soul away in sighs,

Had been for my too tender breast
A task beyond endurance hard,
E'en had not tender Friendship prest,
And Love endear'd the gentle Bard!

But thus to leave this vale of woe,

And 'scape the pangs, that torture me,
Were well! Could I but with him go,
How gladly would my spirit flee!

He never guess'd, nor should be told,

What conflicts close this hand of mine;

Nor can I the dread doom unfold,

'I never, never must be thine!'