of honour the pain of thinking he had even unintentionally made an innocent young person unhappy."

It required all, and more than all Tremaine's experience in the world, to be indifferent to a mother and daughter who thought so favourably of him. But in truth, the old fault so often mentioned, the natural fastidiousness, not to say waywardness of Tremaine, having been his enemy through life in lighter things, could not fail to influence his fate on this most important part of a man's conduct. With a heart originally warm, liberal, and tender too, his disposition towards marriage was not merely natural, but a principle. Yet he had reached an age not far off forty, without even an engagement. A close self-examination, therefore, in regard to Miss Neville, became absolutely necessary to this man of honour as well as of refinement; and the result was, that he resolved not to discontinue his visits, but strictly to scrutinise her conduct, and his own heart.

All this while, the poor girl was totally unconscious of what was passing; and though her mother had acquainted her how struck Tremaine had been with her grace and retenue at court, she could not make out why, according to mamma's directions, the moment he appeared, all her spirits, of which she had a great exuberance, were to be repressed, and why at eighteen she was to assume the manners of a woman of thirty.

This could not long be concealed, and Tremaine began to shudder, when dancing with her at a very select ball, she not only gave the Highland fling with something very like violence, but actually turned both himself and others in the dance, two or three times oftener than the dance required.

The very little inclination of Tremaine, not even amounting to penchant, and excited solely by the appeal made by the mother to his feelings, began to give way. It is impossible, said he to himself, that this girl can prefer a man twenty years beyond her in ge; there must be some mistake. In this frame of mind, calling suddenly at Neville House when mamma was out, he

found her at high romps with her sister and a cousin, a young Cantab, little more than her own age.

The dreadful sounds of "Tom, be quiet," alarmed him on the stairs, and his fear was completed when, entering the drawing-room, he found his Sophonisba heated with play, holding up the fragments of Tom's cravat in noisy triumph, while her own dress exhibited indubitable signs that the familiarity of cousins had gone as far as it legitimately might.

The consequence was, that though too just to accuse a young person of the faults of her mother, he viewed the mother herself with interminable disgust; and seeing at once the reality of her character, all intimacy ceased.

CHAPTER XLIX.

FEMALE REFINEMENT.

Octavia is of a cold and still conversation.
She shows a body rather than a life.

SHAKSPEARE.

AND now for the fair Gertrude! Was that surmise of the Carysfort also founded? Strange to say, more so than at first sight appeared. For though no two creatures were less alike than Lady Bellenden and Mrs. Neville, or than the fair beings whom they own as daughters, the attention of Mr. Tremaine had been excited by the dignified exclusive, in at least as great a degree as by the playful Neville.

Lest the reader, however, should imagine that Mr. Tremaine was a mere man of whim, and endowed with neither penetration nor consistency, let us apprise him, as we ought, that he was honest, and true to his tastes. He had no objection to, or perhaps he even required, a liveliness of character to charm him, but he required still more à fond; a dignity, and even gravity of cha

VOL. I.

T

racter, in all things where principle or feeling was concerned. If his interest about Miss Neville (whatever it was) seem to contradict this, let it be recollected that she had been misrepresented to him, and that he soon discovered his mistake: whereas the Lady Gertrude awed the sense in all the pride and power of a retired and lofty manner, which, even if not all her own, seemed to be so naturally inherited from her aunt (who was the very queen of correctness as well as fashion), that the sceptre of the Duchess, by the easiest of all transitions, appeared to devolve, as of course, upon the imitative niece. When Tremaine, therefore, first saw her, he was inclined to approve, because all he lived with and most respected approved also. He, however, knew nothing of her real character, and he was checked at first, fully as much by his feeling in regard to their disparity of years, as his uncertainty of the feeling of the family on their disparity of rank.

The latter fear was soon set at rest; for independent of the plain character of Lord Bellenden, and the high antiquity of his own family-in which there had been titles long before Lord Bellenden's was ennobled-the attentions of the Duchess convinced him that one of her own daughters, much more her niece, would not be thought too good for a gentleman, who, though a commoner, was of ancient and even noble descent, was most fashionably received, and was master of twenty thousand a year.

The beautiful and prudent Gertrude seemed to be of the same opinion, and intimated it by all the means to which an exclusive could condescend; for not only she was always unbent when he addressed her, but she showed a marked pleasure when he did so—allowed him to present his arm at the Opera when no other commoner could obtain that favour, and pronounced him such supreme bon ton, that at Almack's, notwithstanding his disinclination to dancing, he was often forced into her service, spite of that disinclination.

She went even farther, for she praised his political conduct, wondered he did not speak oftener in Parliament,

and was several times known to have said, in reality, in regard to disparity of age, that which in the instance of the poor Neville had been only said for her.

All this from a finished exclusive! How many men have been caught with baits of less price! In truth, the Lady Gertrude, though she viewed establishment as seriously as her aunt would have her, was in this instance as sincere in respect to love itself, as her powers of loving would let her.

Cannot then an exclusive love?-Yes! in the second instance-but in the first, no one but herself; and just so far could the Lady Gertrude have loved Tremaine, if Tremaine had loved the Lady Gertrude.

And why did he not? Simply because, with an imposing appearance of dignity, and even accomplishments, they were wholly unsupported by either sense or feeling. In short, had the Lady Gertrude lived when Pope wrote his satire on women, it might have been said that it was from her outline he filled his canvas with the well-known portrait of Chloe.

Yet Chloe sure was form'd without a spot,
Nature in her then err'd not, but forgot.
With every pleasing, every prudent part,
Say, what can Chloe want?-She wants a heart.
She speaks, behaves, and acts just as she ought,
But never, never reach'd one generous thought.
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour,
Content to dwell in decencies for ever.
So very reasonable, so unmoved,

As never yet to love-or to be loved.

Was this a wife for Tremaine? With all his defects (and we have shown that he had many), we hope not.

The rest of this historiette is short-for it was not possible for a person, in reality so little gifted, long to disguise that reality to the fault-finding eye of such an attentif (for observe, reader, we do not call him lover), as our man of refinement.

His first alarm was for her heart, at a tragedy, and began by his observing her not merely unmoved, but in full flirtation with Mr. Beaumont, while

Belvidera poured her soul in love,

Willing to attribute this merely to accident, he called upon her the next day, and turned the discourse upon the tragic poets-Shakspeare, Otway, Corneille, Racine. He was delighted to find she knew something of most, and eagerly asked which she preferred? To his astonishment she answered that she did not see much difference. This apathy, or rather ignorance, shocked him, and he stayed away a week.

Meeting her afterwards on horseback in the Park, accompanying her cousins the Ladies S- and her uncle the Duke, he joined the party. She rode gracefully, and looked particularly well. A bevy of dandies joined them also, and (as upon such occasions alone she did), she became talkative. One of the Ladies Sseeing a man in a tree looking at them as they rode by, observed he was like Charles in the oak. This brought on an historical conversation between the two cousins, in which Lady Gertrude remarked, it was a pity that, notwithstanding his wonderful escape, first in the oak, and then in disguise, they should have cut Charles's head off after all!

Her cousins laughed: even the dandies smiled; and the Duke observed gravely that he would make her a present of Hume's History. Poor Tremaine fell back in unconquerable mortification.

Whatever inclination he had had was now cured, and mere civility took the place of attention: he still, however, scrutinised, but the scrutiny was unfortunate. A letter from Lady Bellenden at Lisbon announced so much increase of illness, as to make her wish for her daughter to join her; for which her father, who was flying to his wife, desired her to prepare. Many of her friends con

doled with her on the situation of her mother. "Yes!" said she, "it is quite shocking, and most provoking too just now, at the moment when we've got to town, and the balls are all beginning."

Tremaine heard this, and from that moment regarded the fair Gertrude not merely with indifference, but aversion. This was the

Last scene of all,

And ends this strange eventful history.