A Scheme in View.

said the trembling Mrs. Meadowes, "but I am sure they do not know you are arrived." She then almost flew to the dressing-room of her sisters, and told them all that had past.

"I wish,” said Miss Eliza, the second sister," George was not so impetuous: otherwise you should go down to dinner as a stranger, till we found the old gentleman quite prejudiced in your favour; and then, after dinner, George should confess all."

They just then saw their brother returning home from his morning's walk: his sisters beckoned him, from their window, to come up stairs; but the old gentleman opened the parlour-door, and ordered him into his

* ',

"I hope, Sir," said

presence.

young Meadowes, you call me to assure me of that forgiveness which I again humbly solicit?"

The Catastrophe.

66

Mr. Meadowes doted on his son; he looked at him, he saw him handsomer than ever. "George," said he, you know I love you: I thought, I hoped, you had more pride than to take the rash and foolish step you have done. Now Here is a sweet young creature, I have not yet learnt who she is, but I declare I would have forgiven you, if you had married her without a shilling." I

66

dare say, Sir," said George, "it is my wife you have seen." "Your wife!

not she; this is an elegant, polite, genteel young woman, fit to adorn the drawingroom of any nobleman in the kingdom: not your cinder-sifter, I assure you: but keep the creature out of my sight, don't let her want for any thing the house affords, but never let her come near me !"

George ran up stairs to his sister's dressing-room. It yet wanted half-an-hour to dinner he scorned to listen to their advice, but seizing his wife by the hand,

The Reconciliation.

he forcibly led her down stairs into the presence of his father.. Sir," said he,

as they both knelt at his feet," you cannot retract what you have said in favour of this beloved woman! You have said, she would adorn the most exalted state; can you, then, wonder at your son, if he had penetration enough to discover it when she was clothed in the coarse and humble garb of industry?"

Rise, my children," said the agitated Mr. Meadowes; "I cannot, indeed, my son, I cannot blame your choice." He then tenderly embraced his daughter, and the happy family sat down to dinner, where mirth and joyful reconciliation presided over the hospita

ble board.

Soon after this event, in about eight months from that day, old Mr. Meadowes was suddenly taken off by a fit of apoplexy. On opening his will, the

Death of his Father.

large family estate, with its rich appendages, devolved to his only son; from the unbounded indulgence of the father, and the unlimited extravagance of that son, the daughters' fortunes were found to be but very small indeed! Bred up to nothing but a life of ease, fashion, and affluence, they felt this privation of wealth most keenly. Their brother, affectionately embracing them, assured them they should always live, as usual, at the Hall, and he would do every. thing in his power to make their lives comfortable, and amend their fortunes.

His wife being far advanced in her first pregnancy, he left her at the Hall, to take a full swing of his darling pleasures of dear London. How many envied the lot of Mrs. Meadowes! how few had cause! A young woman, in the situation she was then in, seldom looks well: but she had looked remarkably so all the time; and the most trying time,

Pregnancy.

except the last, being over, her sisters were shocked to see the deep dejection which marked her countenance: they begged she would permit them to send for her mother, but she refused it with energy; knowing how ill she could be spared from the business of her little shop; and that Mr. Meadowes had never expressed a wish, nor even had done any thing, to serve her.

Poor blue-eyed Patty was no longer a novelty! and many was the country girl, already, though he had only been married ten months, who had to rue the day she lent an ear to the flatteries of the young squire.

In about a month after the departure of Mr. Meadowes for London, his wife was delivered of a daughter: the sisters wrote to their brother, thinking to delight him with the news: he wrote