Convinced that he was decidedly wrong, I did no such thing; and both hurt and offended at the tone he had taken in regard to me, and in communicating a resolution, rather than requesting advice, I told him so in terms.

66

What," said he, "is the blood of the Cliffords still on the qui vive? What will you do in the world, where perhaps it will not be much regarded, if it so easily boil over ?"

99

"Act with the same sincerity," said I, "that I now shew you, when I would restrain you, if I could, from putting yourself more and more in the wrong,' "If I have been wrong," said he contemptuously, "it has been in consulting one who, from his situation, is not a proper judge."

I bowed my thanks again, in a manner to shew that I thought him rude; upon which, in a tone somewhat altered, he proceeded, you think me then originally

wrong."

"I do."

66

"And your advice is"

"Not to think yourself above legitimate control, who show that you cannot control yourself.”

"Very good and sententious all this, Mr. Clifford.” "On the contrary," I continued, "redeem yourself by submission."

"Submission! By heavens! this is too much.— 'You know that you are Brutus who speak this.' I looked not for it when I sent for you."

"Or probably you would not have sent. Eh! Is that so, Hastings? Was I to be consulted merely to confirm you in an error of conduct? But I ought to tell you more; for I have thought bitterly and cruelly of the change which there too obviously is between us. I never was Brutus, or am certainly so no longer.

The boy whom you deemed worthy of your affection when upon a footing with you in the desert, is no longer so in the peopled world, where you may chuse your companions. But though this may be true, injustice should never be done, and that boy, because honoured by your family as their visitor, should not be represented to those companions as your 'hanger

on.

Having made this effort, I seized my hat, and motioned as if to leave the room; but astonished, and almost confounded, he advanced towards the door, declaring in a less loud tone, that he knew not what I meant, and that I should not go till I had explained.

Angered at what I supposed to be an evasion, though it perhaps might be real forgetfulness—“ Do not,” said I," add affectation of ignorance to the injustice I complain of. The condescension of your family I shall ever acknowledge; my friendship with you has been the delight of my life; but ask yourself if I ever was theirs or your 'hanger on,' and add to the question whether you have not so represented me to Lord Albany ?”

I then left the room, and was upon the stairs, when he followed me and cried, "Stay! return! this must not be."

Not so resentful as to be unwilling to listen to a man whom I felt I still loved, and who might have repented of his fault, I instantly obeyed, and once more found myself with him in private.

immediately.

He began

"Though I might slight much of what you have said to me, evidently most unwarrantably, yet your last surmise is too derogatory to my honour to pass unheeded. I told you I did not understand you, and I told you true. How you got at any thing from

VOL. I.

Lord Albany respecting any supposed conversation of mine, is to me extraordinary, as there is not and cannot be the least intercourse between you and him; but you have mentioned a particular expression, as coming from me in regard to you, which, if correct, you have a right to resent, but which, denying it to be true, I have also a right to have explained. Relate, if you please, the authority upon which it is founded."

66

Allowing," returned I, with some spleen, "allowing to the full, your intimation, that there is not and cannot be any intercourse between so great a person as Lord Albany and myself-a hint not necessary, I assure you, to remind me of my inferiority-(he reddened much at this)-I reply to your question, that the authority was his own."

"Impossible! I desire particulars."

"You shall have them ;" and I related what I had heard, and what any body else might have heard, in the walk in Merton Gardens; adding, my reasoning upon it, that I could have been the only person

meant.

He admitted the inference, but denied the correctness of the representation.

"Clifford," said he, "I declare before heaven, that as you never deserved the appellation, so it never was applied to you by me. It must have been Albany's own incorrect construction of what I may have related of our acquaintance, and your visit to Foljambe Park."

"Hastings," I said, "I believe you; because, however I may lament the change there evidently has been made in you already by the world, I believe that you are too proud to assert a falsehood."

"I am satisfied," said he, " and as to the changes

you glance at, I am perhaps also too proud to enter upon a defence. In my present position, indeed, with the despot I am embroiled with, you will excuse me if I feel obliged to decline the subject, and direct all my attention to the conduct it demands of me. I lament that it cannot be what you have advised; and

SO

"Farewell, you would say," observed I, re-opening the door," and I say so too."

With this, and a bow not over cordial on either side, I left him.

CHAPTER XII.

A DISSERTATION ON UNEQUAL FRIENDSHIP.

And so farewell to the little good you bear me.
SHAKSPEARE, Henry VIII.

SUCH was my soliloquy, repeated many times on my way home. For, though I seemed in a wilderness of thought, in which Sedbergh, Foljambe Park, Hastings, and Bertha, all had their turns, this sentiment seemed uppermost, and I felt that Hastings and I were separated for ever. The only consolation I had was the entire disavowal that I had been called by that degrading name fixed upon me by Albany ; for Albany's own misconstructions I did not care a rush. And now for Fothergill, who I found had sent for me while I was away.

That rough, probing, keenly observing, but goodnatured man, and true friend, who, full of shrewd Cumberland sense, and "wrapt in his virtue and a good surtout," beheld from his watch-tower at Queen's all the turmoils and struggles of the world, without partaking them himself, had now repented of the rough handling he had given me, for the romance I had confessed in my love for Bertha. He had parted from me, as he himself allowed, in one of his pets, and thinking I had gone out in one of mine, followed me to see what might come of it. "No good, I fear," added he, "for I followed you to Christ Church, where, I mistake, if, from your looks, you have not