I refer to those times, which are better forgotten, as they can never be recalled?"

"Oh, no!—for heaven's sake talk on,” said Matilda; "let me, if possible, live them over again in thought. They are all of happiness I shall ever know."

"No, my dear child," said Lady Ormsby; "it was with very different intentions than to revive useless repinings, that I have ventured to speak to you on this subject, which, as I said before, I do with the greatest difficulty. God knows how I love Augustus, and what pain it has always given me to thwart him, even in trifles.--With what pride, too, could I now retail his just praises by the hour!--I feel, that your presence has preserved his life. I also feel, that your loss might end it.

And yet, I am compelled to tell you, that you ought to part."

"Oh! no, dear Lady Ormsby," said

Matilda; "Why must we part? I am sure, that not a word has ever passed between us, that you might not yourself have heard-not a sentiment you could have disapproved."

"Ask your heart," said Lady Ormsby, "if you may venture so to vouch for its feelings. As yet, you are innocent in word and deed; but are you so in thought? Does not this excessive unwillingness to part, itself prove that there is one for whom you are indulging a preference inconsistent with your duties as a wife?"

"A wife!" said Matilda; "Yes, I am a wife; and all I have suffered, all I ever shall suffer, is a just punishment upon one, who, having loved Augustus Arlingford, could ever marry another. Forgive me, dearest Lady Ormsby," said she, checking herself; "it is very wrong of me to talk thus. I do not

mean to complain of the consequences of my own folly; but you know not all I endured before I could be brought to be false to Augustus-to myself.-The artful incidental confirmations of his pretended fickleness-the offended presence of my only relation-the absence of any real friend-and the insidious persuasions of one who then wore the semblance of friendship, and in whom I then implicitly confided;-all these-but why," continued she, after a pause, "why should I attempt to extenuate my infatuation? ---- Excuse, indeed, it is worse than none,-that I then knew not the real character of him to whom I have tied myself for life; for, whatever his merit might have been, I now feel that I should still have lived to regret a fate, of which the blame, as well as misery, must rest with myself."

"Not entirely," resumed Lady Orms

by; "those who first neglected, and then perverted such a charge, have much

to answer for. I do not underrate the difficulties in which you were placed during my unlucky absence from the country. I only regret that the choice you inadvertently made, should be one which has increased, a hundred fold, those difficulties. But why dwell on this part of the unhappy subject? What I am anxious that you should be made aware of, and my chief inducement for venturing to talk with you on the subject at all, is, that even in such a cheerless lot as yours, there are consolations to be looked for, in the serene evening of life, from higher sources than those of this world. I never like to speak of myself; and it is most of all painful to do so on the subject which I am now about to mention to you: but I, too, have had my trials, though they were

He was

very different, and, I will own, (which is much for me to do,) very inferior to yours. Yet, through them all, I was supported by the strength of early religious impressions. You must have heard that I was, when very young, married to poor Ormsby. then the gayest of the gay. No man more recherché, but no man more libelled. He was called a vaurien,-a roué, —and every thing that was dissipated and unsteady. You may imagine, that my marriage with him was much disapproved by all the more serious part of my family; but I had confidence in his affection; was my own mistress; and consented to become his wife. To say that he never gave me uneasiness, would be to conceal the truth. Had I taken the line that would have been prescribed by some over-rigid moralists, I should never have possessed any influence over