who had repeatedly declared, that he considered me as his daughter, would wish to render me infamous; but he, conceiving, I suppose, that my silence was intended to signify my acquiescence with his wishes, seized my hand, which he pressed to his lips, and thanked me for my condescension in the warmest terms; my reply undeceived him, but it stung his pride, and he was mean enough to reproach me with the obligations I was under to him.

"However numerous they may be, sir (cried I), this behaviour is sufficient to cancel them all; you shall not, however, add to favours which at this moment are sufficiently oppressive to my feelings; I will quit your house as speedily as possible."

"I left him when I had ceased speaking, and returned to the house; I retired to my own apartment to consider how I should dispose of myself. Oh! how wretched is the situation of that. being, who looks round the universe

and sees no soul on whom she has the claim of consanguinity, or the still dearer one of friendship! no heart that beats for her distresses, or pants to relieve them. This forlorn situation was mine; and with a heart almost broken did I apostrophize the spirit of my dear mother, and pray to Heaven that I might speedily join her in those blessed mansions, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.

"I remained in my own room the rest of the day, and I thought of, and rejected a variety of plans. The next morning I went as usual to preside at the breakfast table, and happening to cast my eyes upon a morning paper, I saw an advertisement from a lady of distinction, who wanted a companion. Dependence upon any one must, I thought, be less irksome than my present situation; and indeed, after what had passed, my pride forbade me to remain in the Cheslyn family. I waited upon Lady Diana Douglas, but at the

first glance of her ladyship my heart sunk; her haughty and forbidding countenance, her austere and formal manners, seemed to say that any degree of comfort was incompatible with dependence upon her. I had, however, the good, or rather the ill fortune to please her, and I agreed to remove to her house the following week.

7

"When the Misses Cheslyn found that I intended to leave them, they were equally mortified and surprised; they made, however, no efforts to prevent my departure, and the following week saw me the inmate of Lady Diana Douglas.

"I soon found that I had engaged myself in a mode of life of all others the most repugnant to my feelings; I was the slave of a haughty and capricious woman, who treated me indeed with the ceremonious politeness which she thought due to me as a gentlewoman, but, at the same time, with a formality

She

and austerity, that no being who possessed more animation than an automaton could patiently submit to. was of a very retired and domestic turn, and rarely partook of any public amusements; but when she did, I always accompanied her. The restraint under which I lived preyed upon my health, and I was sinking fast into a state of despondency, when an incident. occurred that awakened me to feelings. equally new and delightful,

"Her ladyship had a favourite nephew, whom I had heard her speak of as a very promising young man; her sentiments and mine, however, were too dissimilar for me to pay any attention to the encomiums she lavished upon him; but when I saw him, I was compelled to own that they were just. Graceful, elegant, and insinuating, he concealed

the most brilliant talents under an un

assuming suavity of manners, that ren

dered him at once respected and beloved...

"He dined with us on the day that I first saw him; and Lady Diana, who was in unusual spirits, behaved to him with more kindness than I thought she had been capable of shewing: he once or twice called a frown into her countenance by being rather too attentive to me; but when he saw that his civilities

"

drew upon me some unpleasant looks from his aunt, he ceased to regard me, and attended wholly to her.

"For some months he passed several hours daily at her ladyship's house; and every interview added to the interest with which he had inspired me. When I listened to those brilliant sallies of wit that flowed from his lips; when I contemplated the benevolence that glowed in his expressive countenance, I regarded him as almost a superior being, and a passion the most fatal to my repose stole into my bosom under the guise of esteem and admiration.

"Mr. Pembroke depended wholly on his uncle, Lord Robert Douglas, who