Continued.

A proficient in the fine and elegant arts, here Lady Frances passed her delighted hours under the mild influence of an unclouded sky, and amongst a people unaccustomed to view a chastened freedom of polished manners in an improper light, Lady Frances reigned among them like a little goddess; and her beneficent mind was rendered completely happy by the happiness she imparted to others.

She had hitherto lived in that tranquil indifference, which, pleased with general attention, exacts it not from one alone: at Bath, in London, at every fashionable summer resort, she had been followed by crowds of lovers; but her young mind and care-repelling heart, had never yet formed an attachment: an accomplished man of fashion was as indifferent to her, if he helped her to mount or dismount her horse, as her mother's footman would be when performing the same office:

Her meeting with Lord Francis Sunbury.

and when she was dancing, an exercise of which she was very fond, in vain the enamoured partner gave her the tender and meaning pressure, as he led her by the fair hand through the dance; one partner, if he danced well, was the same to her as another.

She was now residing in the land of love; where love is the constant theme of conversation; where the soft-hearted Italian girl lends a willing ear to her loyer, whose enthusiasm finds,

"A mistress or a fane in every grove."

A modern Adonis arrived in this delight ful land; and he came from England, from the native country of Frances. A fine person, elegance and accomplishments, then united all their delusive attractions in Lord Francis Sunbury. The fair insensible found herself no longer the same: the similiarity of their tastes, the vivacity of their manners and congeniality of thor ghts, socn gave birth to a mutual

A few Questions to the Heart.

attachment.

Music's divinest strains in

the very region of harmony, the sublimest efforts of the sculptor's and painter's skill, called forth those remarks from them, which evinced to each other their feeling, taste, and genius: whilst the evening's walk, where the orange blossom and jessamine of Calabria, the rose of Pæstum, and the crocus of the Sabine fields, strove for the mastery of fragrance, soon tempted Lord Francis, to offer his hand and fortune to the consenting Frances. Why should such delightful moments of life be ever forgot? Why does not the recollection of them act as a stimulus to decaying affection, and rekindle the languid torch of love? remembrance cannot sleep over moments, where the mind has held the chief ascendancy, and vitiated must be that mind, that seeks to repel those dear intrusions of memory! When these delighted young people wandered through the labyrinths of romance, and when Sunbury found in the similarity of their

An Innocent Delusion.

names, a sure presage that they would be indissolubly united, could his Frances ever think he would wish to dissolve such an union? Oh no, she would say; (if sometimes a moment's reflection did come to her aid) when he thinks of his own name, every time he writes it he will think also of me!

Oh! man, accuse not woman of deception; how dost thou put in practice every Proteus-like art to gain thy purpose ! soft, gentle and fatally insinuating, thou seemest incapable of wounding the heart that confides in thee; even thine own life appears but a trivial sacrifice for the beloved object.

It is but charity to believe, that man, from the impulse of high and ungovernable passions, is honestly sincere, at the moment when he is making protestations of unchanging fidelity, and that he does not really deceive with an avowed in

They return to England.

tention to betray. Weakness in the art of self-conquest, when passions again intrude, renders unsupported every feeble barrier of remaining virtue, and he continues to veer by the destructive force of each momentary inclination, from bad to worse.

Lord Francis well knew that his father would never consent to his marriage with Lady Frances: he had in view for him more high and splendid alliances: Lady Frances knew this also; and that her mother would never consent to sanction their union, without his father's approbation: a private correspondence was therefore agreed upon.

The young nobleman's travels being finished, he departed for England; and the family of the Countess of Benfield left Italy soon after.

On the arrival of Lady Frances in London, Sunbury became more in love