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A Mystery unravelled

and his frame shook with the agitation her presence produced on his mind.

He was caressing a lovely little infant. She suddenly caught the child from his arms, put it into those of the nurse, and ordered her to quit the room with it."My Emily," said her kind husband,

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why are you thus agitated? Be assured, I lay not the least blame on you, only that you did wrong in not immediately informing me of the improper conduct of Sir Theodore towards you."

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"I charge you, my Lord," said she,

as you value your own honour, never touch that child again: It is not your's! It is the offspring of Sir Theodore Brydges, by your guilty wife!-And now, once more, I kneel; I kneel to request one last favour of you, before we part for ever!-I solemnly entreat that you risk not your life against that of the vile Brydges; expose him publicly; ex

A fair Expostulation.

pose your guilty abandoned wife, and let her not receive that forgiveness from society which she is resolved never to accept from you, her injured Lord.-Let me be held up as a mark to posterity; and let me feel the penance of neglect aud contempt for my shameful conduct. Oh! swear, my Lord; swear, that you will perform this my last supplication !"

The result has proved how his Lordship attended to this unhappy pleader.What the agonies of her soul must have been, either when led to make, or when making the fatal confession, is beyond the conception of the human mind. No one, but a person in the same dreadful situation, can form the feeblest imagination of this torturing racking of the human heart.

How new must she have been to vice, how unskilled in intrigue, to make her husband's heart the depository of this dreadful secret! And what arts must have been

Reflections.

used,, what sophistry practised, to turn a mind to guilt, which evinced itself to be naturally the seat of innocent candour and virtue.

She could not endure to receive the affectionate care of an injured husband. His reproach, though kindly meant, wounded her susceptible heart. She scorns. to receive his unmerited attention, and makes ample confession of her fault. Oh! Sir Theodore Brydges, what hast thou not to answer for in corrupting such a mind ?

We have been informed, that since this unhappy event, he has attempted to destroy himself: it was but a vague report, which is now contradicted.

No live Sir Theodore; we wish thee to live; we wish thee to feel, in some degree, the pangs thou hast inflicted We wish not to see thee have thy marriage couch profaned, and thy

on others.

A Wish.

innocent daughters seduced; the lex talionis is not the Christian's law; but we wish to know that thou feelest severe compunction for thy repeated offences against God and man: and we conclude in one pious wish, that thy late guilty life may be purified by long and sincere repentance, lest that punishment, whose slow, but invariable steps, follow close the guilty, should attain thee when it is least expected.

"Rarò antecedentem Scelestum,

"Deseruit pede pœna claudo." HORAT.

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