now Fanny is getting on so nicely! It will be a great loss."

Matilda spoke of her increasing interest in her sister's fate, with so much affection and sincerity, that Mrs. Belgrave's heart was softened to a degree beyond what it had ever been before.

Still it was only a passing emotion of tenderness, little corresponding in kind or degree to the deep, impassioned feeling which, however subjugated it had been to the yoke of reason and necessity, was the predominant characteristic of Matilda, when circumstances unexpectedly and strongly excited it.

So little had she imagined the possibility of kindness from her mother, of a congratulation or a tender wish, that when Mrs. Belgrave replied to her assurances of continued interest in her family, by telling her that she was a good girl-and you always have been, Matilda-I will say that for you-you always have been a very great comfort to me," kissing her as she spoke the poor girl wholly overpowered, threw her arms round her mother's neck, and for some minutes sobbed as if her heart would break.

This was carrying sensibility to a degree which Mrs. Belgrave could, by no effort of understanding, comprehend.

"Good gracious, Matilda! something must be upon your mind!" and looking forward to all the anxious circumstances of her case, in the same point of view in which they would have, and, in her own two instances, had affected herself, Mrs. Belgrave believed she saw at once the whole of the embarassment and distress.

"You are thinking, my dear, I dare say, about

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your clothes, and 'the great expense of fitting out properly for marriage; but don't let that make you uncomfortable, for I will-"

Matilda did not require this injunction to be repeated. Without listening to the conclusion of her mother's speech, which contained a promise of speak. ing to her guardian to induce him to advance a handsome sum for this most important purpose of wedlock, she raised her head from Mrs. Belgrave's shoulder, and with a sigh that could scarcely be disjoined from a smile, assured her that no ideas of this kind occasioned her any uneasiness.

"Then, what is it that makes you so unhappy?"

Matilda hesitated a little before she spoke. At last, "under the most prosperous circumstances," she said, "there is sufficient cause for anxiety in the event to which I look forward."

Mrs. Belgrave, probably, from the advantage of her double experience, had grown somewhat callous to the anxiety of which Matilda spoke, for she remarked that she considered her" as particularly for. tunate, with your small fortune, my dear Matilda, to be so early, and so well established; and as to anxiety, God knows, I have had enough anxiety in my time!" and she sighed, though why or wherefore, it would have been difficult to say, for few ladies had accomplished their designs with less destruction of perve and sensibility than Mrs. Belgrave; her anxieties having been principally of the sort which money had the power to relieve.

"But you see I have surmounted it all," she said, " and I am now as happy"-she paused a little-for a simile, perhaps, or from a difficulty of conveying to her daughter a correct idea of her bliss.

Matilda had now composed her agitation, at least sufficiently to make suitable replies to her mother's succeeding remarks, which, as they were no otherwise striking than as they illustrated the infirm, and unfortunately, predominant parts of that lady's character, we shall altogether suppress.

"Oh, my poor mother!" was Matilda's sighing reflection, as, the conference ended, she retired to her own room.

CHAPTER XV.

THE discomfort of Matilda's domestic circumstances since her mother's marriage, though submitted to, on her part, with the most patient resignation, could not be unknown to either Mrs. St. Aubyn or her son; nor did it fail to excite in the hearts of both of them that tender interest which, independently of her early trials in the school of adversity, it was scarcely possible to withhold from her; so gentle, so modest, so truly feminine and attractive, both in person and character, was Matilda Grey.

If, in her soft and quiet manner, she had insensibly stolen the almost maternal love of Mrs. St. Aubyn, it will not occasion surprise to learn, that she had to, tally, though, in truth, most unconsciously, made her own, the all of attachment that St. Aubyn had to give. Left under his guardianship at an age when she was still a child, he had, for a long time, been sheltered from the apprehension of any danger in their connexion, by persuading himself that he loved

her only as he would have done a daughter of his own. That Matilda felt towards him the affection and respect due to a parent, she openly professed ; a thought beyond this, had certainly never entered her simple imagination; and it had latterly been a grief, which had caused her some tears, to perceive occasionally, a restraint in the manner of her guardian towards her, and to observe his behaviour sometimes so different from what it used to be, and, to her, so wholly unaccountable.

But, before the circumstance of which Mrs. St. Aubyn now had to inform him, of his ward's engagement, Edmund had detected the state of his own heart-detected it with grief! The careless, unembarassed conduct of Matilda, and the same open avowal of affection for him which she had always made, sufficiently testified, that, to her, he could be nothing more than what he had ever been-her guardian and her tutor for almost all that she had gathered of mental information and accomplishment, and it was not trifling, it had been his delightful occupation to impart.

If he had been deputed to pourtray the being, who most assimilated with his conception of the beau idéal in woman, Matilda would have been his model, his own mind so particularly blended with the kind of attractions hers possessed. He too was gentle, delicate, refined, but still endowed with strong affections, chastened however by a holy principle of religion which, early implanted, and still sedulously cherished, was the predominant rule of all his actions. Unlike his mother, he had not yielded to the world's temptations-he had not forgotten his early friend. Though not quite a convert to all her opinions, he

still leaned very far towards adopting the peculiar doctrines of his friend Ann Morton, with whom he still corresponded, and whom, once in every year, he made it as much a point of pleasure, as of duty, to visit.

But, with all the fortification of religious principle, with all the aid of an uncommonly clear and well judging mind, with strong self command in disguising emotion, the intelligence Mrs. St. Aubyn communicated respecting Matilda, (though she had previously prepared him to receive it, by telling him all she had heard rumoured of it in London) affected him to a degree he could not conceal. Catherine much more than suspected the growing attachment of her son for his ward; but the name of Matilda had never been mentioned betweeen them with any reference to such a supposition. St. Aubyn had concealed his own secret, as a man of sense might be expected to conceal what, he possibly imagined, it would not redound to the credit of his understanding to disclose. There is a delicacy in genuine attachment, which recoils from being discussed. Men, more particularly, from the superior strength of their minds, disguise as much as possible, even from themselves how far they may be subjugated to the dominion of love; and even women are generally unwilling, to the most friendly ear, to speak of those fond illusions in which the dream of life is passing

away.

Yet, when all was made but too certain by this startling intelligence, when Matilda's own lips had confirmed it, and his mother he found was commissioned by her to communicate it to him-nature was not quite to be repelled.