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and fellow-collegians, I speak with full information."

"Pray get on," said I.

"Well; eternal constancy, as usual, was vowed; the match approved by papa, when a few years should have matured it, both being so young; meantime, correspondence, and a vast et cæteraquæ nunc perscribere longum est.

"As I was his confidant, I heard all his accounts of her beauty and merits, and sometimes saw them together; but, except in the common attractions of youth, freshness, and good humour, and a seemingly entire devotion to him, I perceived nothing to justify the frenzy which afterwards ensued on his disappointment."

"There was frenzy, then ?"

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Scarcely short of it, I assure you. He was but one-and-twenty when, though his own letters had begun to be not over warm, he complained that her's were growing cold, and this excited him from a tolerably tame, engaged lover, into one agitated with fears and uncertainties. He thought Elizabeth the most enchanting person upon earth; no one like her; he was perpetually invoking her name, and wrote most passionately; till her own warmth continuing to fall off, he could bear it no longer, and though scarcely of age, he resolved to bring the matter to a point, by insisting upon the immediate fulfilment of the engagement, or a breach of it for ever.

"To his then dismay, and after happiness, the breach was preferred. A winter at Bath, while he was immersed in Oxford studies, and the offers of a headlong young peer, just out of leading-strings, had undermined him; his betrothed was faithless, and he was undone."

"How could such a person," asked I, "have such consequence with him as to occasion the misery you say he suffered ?”

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Ask," replied Granville, "those who understand the unintelligible subject of love, in all its million of forms and colours, to explain it, for I could as soon square the circle as tell you. All that I could really gather from it was, that real love is the most difficult thing in the world to discover; so many of its symptoms, and those the most marked and violent, being usurped by other passions.

"In this case, as I told you, my friend seemed frantic with disappointment. He exhibited sometimes a paroxysm of rage-sometimes a silent mournfulness, not the less pitiable, because I thought the occasion of it was unworthy. He was so sunk in bitterness as to loathe all his former occupations, whether of amusement or instruction, and even his food. He would estrange himself from company for weeks, and, like a Camillo, plunge into the depths of the forest of Dean, near which he dwelt, shunning every thing cheerful, and wholly absorbed by the disgust that consumed him.

"And yet I am sure all this passion-this agony of disappointment-was not the effect of love so much as mortification and hurt pride operating upon a sensibility, at that time of his life so morbid, that I feared for his mind. I am persuaded of this, because, while things were smooth, and he thought himself secure, his feelings were comparatively tame. He bore absence most heroically. His eyes did not sparkle, nor his countenance beam with joy, when the lady approached, and he always quitted her with calmness. Had prudence, or any other worldly cause, broke their engagement, I am mistaken if it would have cost him a sigh. On the contrary, I have seen him sigh when he has remarked how little of companionship she possessed - for a mind like his. He admired, loved her at first, as a beautiful child, but no more. He reposed upon this; expected no more; and was negatively happy. How was I astonished, therefore, to witness this burst of fury-this passion of anger-and still more at the lasting effects it seemed to produce upon him. At the distance of twelve months he could not hear her name mentioned, nor even that of the place where she dwelt, without trembling, and he shunned the pathway that led from his garden to the church-door, because several of the tomb-stones by which he had to pass recorded the name of Elizabeth."

"It would be difficult," said I, "to pronounce

that this was not love, and yet, from your account of the object, it would be still more difficult to suppose it was.”

“All that we can decide upon," returned Granville, “is, that the very profound and very new apothegm, that Love is blind, is founded in truth. The wonderful part of the story is, that Brownlow's cure was as unaccountable as his infatuation. This compound passion of love, anger, and resentment, dropt out of his heart of itself, without being immediately influenced by any other. He enjoyed his liberty, and coursed the world in its pleasantest scenes; made a reputation for himself, which you see was deserved, and which went far to his success with the lady he married (Lady Elizabeth Belmore), as opposite to his former Elizabeth as light. to darkness.

"And now go home; ponder all you have seen and heard; and rest assured that although, as in the case of poor Melford, a disappointment in love may lead to a destruction of mind (as, in fact, it does often to that of the body), yet such was not the intention of Nature when she indued us with such elasticity of disposition, and such good principles, as shine in Brownlow. Apply this to yourself, and so good night.”

CHAPTER XIII.

I HAVE ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH LADY HUNGERFORD, WHO IS MORE DISCOURAGING AND MYSTERIOUS, YET KINDER THAN EVER.

Thou art all ice-thy kindness freezes.

SHAKSPEARE.-Richard III.

I HAVE too long neglected to mention my charming instructress, Lady Hungerford. For though she was pleased to say I no longer wanted schooling, from old kindness she admitted me as usual; nay, as I thought, was more than ever gracious.

I did not plume myself upon this, for I had tact enough to see that Granville's friendship for me, or rather perhaps my friendship for him, which made him my constant theme, went full half-way towards the easy footing on which I was treated. Be that as it may, I was never denied, and sometimes without waiting in the ante-room was conducted at once to the boudoir.

On one of these occasions, Lady Hungerford was not there, though she could only just have quitted

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