Inconstancy and Levity.

of anxiety, till he saw the sure hold he had of her affections, trifled with them, and then basely

"Seized the minute of returning love."

Soon he left this lovely but unfortunate girl to deplore her fault, and execrate the hour that she lent an ear to this base betrayer. Charming as she was, she could not fix his inconstant and wavering heart, but for a very short period of time. Promiscuous and varied gallantry were best suited to the capricious sensuality of his ideas; and the unfortunate Countess of Lerranagh, the wife of an Irish Earl, was the next conspicuous object of his licentiousness.

We pass over his subaltern amours, in the interval which took place, between his treacherous seduction of the Clergyman's daughter, and that of his conduct

A new Mistress.

towards the lady in question; but we are told they were numerous.

Lady Lerranagh appeared to hold a longer empire over his inconstant heart than all his other female conquests; for the guilty commerce carried on between them, by circumstances which were brought to light, must have continued some length of time before it was discovered. One summer's evening led to the developement of this fatal transaction.

A few friends were on a visit to the Earl; a walk in the grounds was proposed, from which her Ladyship begged to be excused, alledging indisposition.

But as the party was returning homewards, late in the evening, to the surprise of Lord Lerranagh, they met her, leaning familiarly on the arm of Sir Theodore, without hat or shawl, and by no means

An unexpected Confession.

having the appearance of a person indisposed.

When retired to rest, her Lord told her that he thought she was very imprudent. Alas! good man, he little imagined her to be more; and it is a doubtful point whether he meant that she was imprudent, having a cold, to go out in the evening as she had done, or whether he alluded to her conduct with Sir Theodore Brydges.

The dreadful conviction of her guilt flushed in her face, and stuck its rankling arrows into her reproaching conscience. "Oh! my dear, my injured Lord," she eried, "I am more than imprudent! But hear me, on my knees, solemnly assert, 1 give up all future connexion and acquaintance with the vile seducer, Sir Theodore Brydges, who has made it his unremitting endeavour, ever since he

Continuation.

came to the house, to draw

my

affections

from you, and possess my person!"

The character of Lord Lerranagh is mild, gentle and rational. Sir Theodore Brydges, thought he to himself, has acted the part of a villain, but I detest duelling: I will expostulate with him. Still he had no idea of the extent of his misery or his disgrace; no idea that his wife was actually guilty, but imagined she had only accused Sir Theodore to him for his want of honour, and herself as criminal in having listened to him, and not imparting his dishonourable proposals before to her husband.

They passed a wretched night. Lord Lerranagh dreaded the meeting with a man whom he had ever looked upon, and was yet willing to believe was still his friend But for his honour, he knew the necessity of forever giving up his friendship and future acquaintance.

The

Impudence of the Seducer.

tears of Lady Lerranagh bedewed her pillow; and she arose in the morning the picture of agony and despair. She obtained an opportunity of speaking to Sir Theodore. She told him of the confession she had made; exhorted him, if his life was dear to him, to fly, or dreadful might be the consequences. He execrated her folly for the premature avowal of their correspondence; ridiculed her fears for his life; stigmatizing and laughing at the man he had so basely injured as an arrant coward, who knew better than to fight with a man so well skilled as himself in duelling. And Sir Theodore Brydges was as famous for that genteel mode of murder, as for other prevalent vices of this polished century.

Frantic, unconscious how she acted, she again bent her steps to the chamber of her injured husband. She found him much indisposed, from the restlessness he had experienced the preceding night,