wealth would soon be distributed among those who won his favour, had been sent to him on a visit that was protracted from year to year, until the old gentleman, who had long railed against matrimony, and piqued himself on escaping the snare, came to the usual end of such sagacious declaimers by marrying his housekeeper, a consummation which occasioned his niece to be immediately taken home. Lady Trevanian had felt so much annoyance from her own ignorance of French, which was much spoken at the Court, especially during the long sway of Charles the Second's favourite Madame de Querouaille, the Duchess of Portsmouth, that she resolved to secure the acquisition of that language for her youngest daughter Adeline. She was accordingly provided with a Parisian governess for her Duenna, who was strictly charged never to trust her out of her sight, and always to make her speak French, to facilitate which object she had an unlimited command of romances and plays in that language.

Helen's return, and the arrival of that period

when it became necessary to present both sisters at Court, and introduce them into the world, seemed for the first time to open their mother's eyes to the character of the circle by which she was surrounded; and some licentious language addressed to Adeline by one of the profligate gallants that frequented the house, confirmed her misgivings, and even awakened all her terrors. Hardened as to her individual fate and estimation, she felt with a sensibility rendered more jealous by the remembrance of her own misconduct, the dangers to which her daughters might be exposed; while a pang of deep though silent remorse stung her to the heart as she reflected that it was herself who had subjected them to these perils, herself who had alienated them from many of the pure and virtuous associates of their own sex, who might have served them for a model of conduct, for which unfortunately they could not look to their own mother. Her repentance was intense, although she still sought to make a compromise with her pride by giving out to the world that she withdrew from London on her daughters'

account, not upon her own. Such was the general profligacy of the courtiers, and more

especially of those with whom she was the most intimate; such was her experience of the unhappiness of marriages contracted amid the circles of fashion and high life as they were then constituted, that she deemed it preferable to seek a settlement for her girls among the more respectable, though less polished classes of the country gentlemen. Perhaps some individual disgust or disappointment confirmed, if it did not suggest, these notions. Be this as it may, she submitted her wishes to Lord Trevanian, who eagerly acquiesced in an arrangement which would release him from a wife whom he hated, while he could little regret the separation from his daughters, whom he had rarely seen, and about whom he had never troubled his head. She withdrew with them accordingly to Harps den Hall, a mansion of his Lordship's in Dorsetshire, where she had not been many months settled when Reuben sought sanctuary in the woodhouse, under the circumstances we have stated.

With a finely shaped oval face, mild hazel

"

eyes, the clear complexion of a brunette, silky dark hair, a singularly noble and intellectual though somewhat sedate expression of counte nance, and a form that might be emphatically termed lovely and feminine, Helen united a mind of almost masculine solidity, good sense, and self-possession. In the library of her Bachelor uncle she had passed much of her time among sterling books, and having few associates or amusements during her abode with a sequestered old humourist, she had thought more for herself in her first childhood, (if that period may be extended to the middle of the teens), than many who are about to enter into their second.

As to Adeline, she was a handsome romantic girl, whose highly-arched eyebrows, expressive of an animated wonderment, and the simper that for ever wreathed her features, and flickered around her mouth, would have stamped her with a character of mingled good-nature, vanity and vivacity, even had she not conveyed that impression by the sparkling frivolity of her discourse, the affectation of her coquettish & de

meanour, and the fantastical over-finery of her dress. Vain and superficial as she was, she exhibited at times in her discourse a certain character of archness, and an amusing love of espiéglerie, that seemed hardly to assimilate with . her general love of romance, and the occasional weakness of her conduct; so that at times it was difficult to decide whether her actions proceeded from natural silliness, or a mere love of mischief and adventure. The plays and ro mances that had formed her only reading, seemed to have left room in her head for little else, except scraps and interjections of French, picked up from a governess not much wiser than herself. There was little congeniality of disposition between herself and Helen, who sometimes by argument, sometimes by ridicule, ineffectually endeavoured to cure her of her faults; and poor Adeline had nothing to do but to wander about the grounds with some French-volume in her hand, recline under a tree in an interesting attitude, or perch herself in the summer-house window, like a Juliet with out a Romeo, while she read French romances,