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hand, to press me to his friendly breast, and to insist on my making his house and table, for an indefinite time, my home.

"In fact, I had no sooner arranged my affairs in London, than I found myself in his carriage, rattling off to Arden Hall. Whilst I was fully sensible of the hospitality and kindness of the General, I was deeply affected at the obvious changes for the worse in my excellent friend's mind and body. His constitution was evidently breaking up, and his conversation indicated an intellectual puerility worse than childishness. He retained the impression of past pleasures, and had every wish to prolong enjoyment, but inclination alone remained. His head would nod like that of a Chinese mandarin in a toy-shop, over his second glass, and sound sleep would wrap sense in forgetfulness, whilst expatiating on the charms of his lady. O the depth of human folly! He was a modern Candaules. Not contented with silent enjoyment, he committed treason against delicacy in the kingdom of secrecy; he insulted the goddess of Hymen, to whom he had sacrificed, by revealing her mysteries.

"What could I do? The want of one of

my

senses on such occasions would have been a blessing. If I had been deaf, I could not have been poisoned by sound through the medium of hearing. In short, before the plantations round Arden Hall appeared in sight, my imagination was filled with the image of my friend's wife. I gazed in thought on coral lips, like rose-buds dipped in dew, revealing a double row of pearls, more precious to eye-homage than all the gems of ocean. A complexion transparent beyond all comparison-cheeks that paled the rose with envy-eyes, whose beam possessed more animation than the fire stolen by Prometheus—a figure more temptingly round and inexpressibly exquisite than has been given by art unto Venus-a bosom whiter than snow, and warmer than love, swelling and subsiding with soft sighs of deep feeling—a mind accomplished, and a taste matured-in a word, on an image of loveliness that man cannot behold and remain his own

master.

"If I had known myself, if I had known human frailty, I should have never looked upon the reality of my mental fascination. I was proud in con

fidence, armed with friendship, as I thought with integrity invulnerable, and though by no means a Joseph in general, yet in this particular case, a very Joe.

"At length we reached my friend's hospitable mansion. You may conceive how cold I endeavoured to feel; but how many degrees above freezing did the mercury of my thermometer climb, when I saw Mrs. Arden, saw how far she surpassed the shadow of my imagining? Yet I thought myself perfectly secure from being pierced by any love-shaft, when I stood behind the shield of honour and friendship. Alas! for confidencealas! for honour-and alas! for friendship. A lass will storm their entrenchments, and, like Joan of Arc, without witchcraft, enter the garrison of the human heart victorious. But I shall describe some of the personages I met at Arden Hall, where I took up a position, for they are entitled to brief notice, as well on their own account as for their connexion with my story.

"Mrs. Arden's mother and sister were on a visit at Arden Hall, when I arrived there with the General. The old lady had been the belle of her

day. At sixteen she made use of a ladder of ropes, and, from a second story, dropped into the arms of a merchant's clerk, who rattled her, as fast as post horses could make the wheels of a chaise circulate, to Gretna, where one of Vulcan's descendants, a rare but effectual refuge for lovers, forged a chain which linked the young couple for better for worse. I did not behold, and therefore cannot describe the grief and rage of her father and mother, at seeing their only child the wife of a beggar. Yes, this was what he was called, though a youth of good family, a young man of talent, prepossessing manners, pleasing exterior, and substantially promising prospects in the field of commerce. Such was the obstinate passion of the old couple, that our young lovers were left in the full enjoyment of love in a cottage, till in the course of time, our happy husband rose to be partner in that firm whose books he had kept, and in no want of his fatherin-law's fortune. Then a reconciliation took place; and, on the death of the old people, our merchant became possessed of what would have been of infinite use to him at his outset in life. Subsequently, however, a suit in chancery commenced between the

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partners, in consequence of a quarrel, which broke up the firm, and, after a litigation of many years, Mrs. Arden's father died of a broken heart at the law's delay, leaving her mother, herself, and one sister the wreck of his fortune, which hardly afforded them the comforts of genteel existence. Mrs. Arden's beauty was therefore bartered for the General's possessions, by her mother, who, notwithstanding her own experience, considered the girl a fool that would think of marrying for love. Ambition and ostentation were now her passion and foible. One was the pope of her mind, and the other the mode of her idolatry. She had long opposed the wishes of her youngest daughter, who was deeply enamoured of a gallant young officer, but because he could not show a long rent-roll, a certain parliamentary introduction, and an imposing line of ancestry, she refused her consent, and promoted the object of Sir Harry L, who aimed at seducing her married child, without subjecting himself to a prosecution for breach of promise to the young lady. In person, Mrs. Arden's mother was tall, and not ungraceful, but her countenance had a bloated appearance, though she had not passed

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