I suppose from this letter you have already contemplated a mesalliance.'

"Father,' I replied, I never have deceived you, and never will.'

"Wait then, at least,' answered he, 'till this tottering frame of mine has sunk. Let me not witness the disgrace. Promise me never to visit these ladies again while I live. Ladies they evidently are, although the customs of the world deny them that title.'

"I promise you, my dear father,' replied I, in agitation. 'On the other hand, though I presume not to make a condition, and therefore do not demand a promise, let me hope that you will not insist upon this English visit, at least till my time has expired, and I am three-and-twenty.'

"Depending upon your own good faith, I will not,' said my father. Leave ine, for I am not well.'

"Nor was he, for though not apparently in danger, he had the seeds of a mortal disease beginning to shew themselves in him; and from the chamber which he had sought, as he thought, for a few days' relief, he never afterwards stirred. Yet he did not immediately die, and before his death I had the satisfaction of reading his answer to the letter of Mathilde's mother, in which he bore the highest testimony of respect and gratitude to that honourable woman.

"There was now a prodigious alteration in my views. I was no longer under any control but my own, and I thought I had a right to dispose of my heart as I pleased. It was a right given by nature to man, which nobody could take from him. But I behaved like a coward. Instead of coming to fair and open explanations with you and my uncle on the subject, I was sullen and silent, and, in fact, shrank from you with fear. Yet I resolved ultimately to go over to England, to throw myself at your feet, and confessing my predilection for another, to leave it to you to exact the performance of our engagement or not. Had I done this immediately, or done no more, perhaps I might not have been so much to blame; but meantime, and before this was done, I pursued Mathilde.

"As soon as my affairs, and the sincere grief I felt for my excellent parent, permitted, I flew to Hermann's cottage; but the birds were flown.

"The removal from the University of the royal personage whose designs had forced them into exile, had left them free, and they had returned to Leipsic. Hither I followed them, and had the delight of finding myself rapidly advancing in Mathilde's affection; when I awakened as from a dream, in which I had too sadly lost myself, by the reflection of my total want of power, consistently with honour, to continue the career I was pursuing.

"The thought, as if it had never occurred before, came like a thunder-clap upon me; I felt agonized, maddened, and despairing of pardon, either from you or the Beckmans. But I at last resolved to execute the design I had conceived, of going to England and throwing myself on your mercy. It was impossible, I felt, that your heart could be in the least interested. It was a mere family arrangement, out of which, if you thought as I did, I trusted my retreat would not be difficult. In truth, I feared my uncle more than you. With this resolution I fled from Leipsic, and came to Foljambe Park. You know the rest."

So closed the narrative, which produced a complete settlement of the question as to the engagement in the mind of Bertha, relieving her, as she said to Lady Hungerford, from all anxiety, and restoring her to herself.

Uncertainty, however, and uneasiness too, remained in regard to Mr. Hastings, who was too ill to be agitated by such an important alteration in his views, and whose feelings might have been sensibly hurt by it, even if well.

It was to aid her friend in her embarrassment that Lady Hungerford flew to her, on the receipt of her last letter; but the increasing illness of Mr. Hastings prevented for some time all communication of the affair. The great and unexpected improvement in his health had, however, at length permitted it, nor did it produce any shock. The assurance which Bertha gave him, and which her whole demeanour confirmed, that the change was rather satisfactory to her than otherwise; and the evidence which the letters and narrative I have just transcribed gave, that had the engagement proceeded, it would have ended in misery of both; all this had its due weight with his right-judging mind. He was indeed himself relieved from no small anxiety for his darling child,

occasioned by a delay for which he could not account; and as his honour was totally uncompromised, and he appeared even in the character of a generous friend to his nephew, in releasing him from his fetters, the effect upon his peace, and therefore his health. was really beneficial.

It remains to add, by way of completing the history of what may be called this romance, that my conjecture was right as to the ignorance of the engagement on the part of Foljambe. This, according to Granville, who told it me, arose from the fear of the overbearing pride and violence of his temper, aiming, even at that young age, at nothing less than the control of his whole family; but particularly from the fear of the affected contempt which he always expressed for the German alliance, and the virulent opposition he would certainly have made to drawing it closer. His father, therefore, imposed silence on Bertha, and kept it himself, during Foljamb's life; and Granville and Lady Hungerford were the only confidants of the secret, after the death of Foljambe; hence their late extraordinary mystery with me, and hence Foljambe's zealous recommendation, when alive, of the proposals of the two other suitors.

Having thus, I trust, enlightened my readers on what they might think the perplexing story of the prince, I now proceed with my own.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ANOTHER RIVAL APPEARS ON THE SCENE, WHICH MIGHT OCCASION ALARM, BUT SINKS BEFORE MY CONFIDENCE IN BERTHA'S CHARACTER.

The four winds blow in from every coast
Renowned suitors.

SHAKSPEARE.Merchant of Venice

HAD I myself been allowed to peruse the letters and narrative which I have just set before my reader, almost as much

It

in pity to him as for my own convenience in relating my story, it may be supposed that I should have proceeded in my interesting undertaking with far different hopes, and in far different spirits, than those which actually possessed me. is certain, that although, as I have stated, I was so devoted to the feeling that absorbed me, and of so sanguine a temperament, that I was contented to pursue my design, yet I wished for something far more real, and better set off as to particulars, than the mere naked assurance, though upon such good authority as the friends who gave it, that Bertha's heart as well as hand was free.

At any rate, did I gain any thing by this in regard to myself? Was there the smallest encouragement held out to me that, because the prince (from whatever cause) had failed, I should succeed? How much might also depend upon the cause of that failure, which the reader will recollect I did not at this time know, and was therefore left to pursue my way, in almost as uncomfortable a state of ignorance of the details, as I had so long been struggling with as to the fact itself.

Upon the whole, therefore, my conferences with Granville, though they so far encouraged hope as to relieve me from fear of the prince, it was a hope by no means amounting to confidence; and in the midst of the satisfaction of being delivered from the terror of one rival, my peace was somewhat disturbed by the threatning announcement of another.

Granville was as usual the channel of the intelligence, and from the time he took for it, which was just half-an-hour before dinner, I accused him of the ill nature of an intention to spoil that necessary meal. Having finished his own toilet, he came to me while at mine, and my valet having retired, he asked me at once, and, as I thought, rather abruptly, whether the intelligence he had given me as to Bertha's freedom, had produced any, and what determination as to my own conduct?

"You seem in a hurry," said I; "yet, upon my faith, the scauty materials you have given me, by which to shape my resolution, do not appear to require any particular haste."

"More, perhaps," returned he, "than you are aware of, for young Mansell comes here to-night."

"And what then?"

"Why, then, he means to enter the list with you as a suitor to his cousin; and who knows but he may succeed?

"I do," replied I, with great firmness. "You might as well suppose that if he had offered to Lady Hungerford, before your worship appeared, her ladyship would have married him."

"And yet Venus married Vulcan ;-and a fresh-coloured Yorkshire squire, with good blood in his veins-"

"Well ?"

Though a bit of a blockhead, and not able to dance do

as you
"Well ?"

"May be thought as good for a husband, as the blacksmith was by the Goddess of Beauty. Such qualifications have won many a sentimental lady, fond of dancing too (though he is such a clown at it), before now. I assure you I am horribly afraid."

"So am not I."

"Well, but Honora is. Will not that shake you?" "No."

"What has made you so confident?"

"Heaven knows, for my own success, I am not so—butif success were to depend upon comparison, I dare enter the lists with him. I cannot give Bertha eight thousand a-year, but I can give what he never can, a heart and a mind fully able to understand and appreciate her perfections; and much I mistake if she would not value this more than a dozen coaches and six. Whom she may love I know not, but of this I am sure that—

'Her love, more noble than the world,
Prizes not quantity of dirty lands.'

"Molto bravo!" cried Granville; "but at least prepare for the trial, for, as I told you, Mansell comes here to-night."

Granville then told me a most amusing trait of this distinguished young gentleman, which, however, deserved not so much laughter as he bestowed upon it, for it shewed a modesty for which we had not given him credit. It seems he