LITMIR.BIZ

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have wished to conceal.' After a few general things, she told her the pleasure it gave her of having so near a prospect of being entitled to take an interest in all her concerns; when she would be happy in her friendship. In this Lady Frances was perfectly sincere; for though she had been alarmed at the intended marriage taking place, and although she was of a very shy disposition, yet, at first sight, feeling the greatest partiality for Miss Burt, she echoed her sighs, and her eyes bore testimony of the feelings of her heart. With all the confidence of an ancient friendship, she conjured her to acquaint her with the cause of her sorrows; and took upon her to console, soothe, and comfort her. Miss Burt had only time to express the sense she entertained of her goodness, and to add, her miseries were too great to be alleviated; when her grand-father entering the room, the conversation turned upon general topics.

      Upon Lady Frances's return home, her father gayly enquired, What she thought of his intended bride? She answered, Every thing that was charming; and that she had prepared for her an eternal habitation in the warmest part of her heart: 'There is every thing in her,' added she, 'that can engage the affections, or command the respect, of people of taste and judgment.'

      Lord Finlay mean while was under the greatest oppression of spirits. A thousand conflicting passions tortured his (until then) undisturbed bosom. Love and filial piety alternatively took possession of his soul. Each in their turn was rejected.—When sentiments are nearly of equal force, the soul, as if unsettled, and wavering between contrary emotions, knows not which to resolve on; its decrees destroy each other; scarce is it freed from its troubles when it is involved in them anew; this undetermined state does not always terminate to the advantage of the most powerful sentiment.

      After a long conflict, the soul wearied out with the efforts it has made, gradually loses its sensibility and force together; and finally yields to the last impression, which thus remains master of the field. After many struggles, Lord Finlay was determined to sacrifice his inclinations, or in other words, (what he thought, his life, to his father.)

      This pious resolution, no doubt, was strengthened by his supposing Miss Burt had acquiesced to the proposed marriage. His resentment supported his prudence. Such was the situation of Lord Finlay's mind, when Lady Frances received the following letter from Miss Burt.

      'Madam,

      You found me in tears, and kindly insinuated your desire to mitigate my distress; receive from me all the acknowledgments which can proceed from a full heart, raised from the lowest distress, to a glimmering prospect of avoiding misery, while that superior Power which witnesses your generosity, will reward it. Thus, when unhappy, we grasp at the least shadow of relief! we seize upon it with eagerness, and in a moment raise ourselves above our afflictions. When an unhappy drowning wretch is carried away by the current, while intimidated by the steepness of the banks, and the rapidity of the torrent, he looks upon death as inevitable; his sinews relax, his heart fails him, he looks forward to an awful dreaded futurity: but if the least twig presents its friendly assistance, his courage at last revives, he raises his head, he seizes upon it with a hasty avidity, and makes a sudden and violent effort to save himself from destruction. Such is my application to your ladyship. Heaven grant you may avert from me those evils I so much dread! even the horror of involving my respectable parents in want and misery. My father's probity has entailed on him poverty; and my grandfather's half-pay is our sole dependance, exclusive of the salary Lord Munster settled on my respectable parent when he undertook to superintend the education of his son; and which he promised to continue for life, in compensation for his giving up all other pursuits. I flatter myself, the frowardness of his unhappy daughter will not frustrate his lordship's beneficence, and which he judged his labours entitled him to. May I intreat your ladyship will soften, through the medium of your influence, the refusal of the honor intended me!

      An attempt to deceive would wring my soul to torture: Can I then take upon me vows at the altar, incompatible with the feelings of my heart, and the possibility of conforming myself to? forbid it, gratitude, truth, and justice! let me sooner become a martyr to these, as my unfortunate father. In every event of my life, integrity and honor shall influence me. If my refusal is not founded upon the most advantageous, yet it is upon the most worthy terms: if that of embracing tranquility before profit, and preferring probity of mind, even attended with the greatest inconveniences, before its opposite, although surrounded with every outward accommodation, be deserving of that epithet. I ask pardon for this intrusion, and have the honor to be

      Your Ladyship's

       Obliged humble servant,

       Mary Ann Burt.'

      The little tenderness Lord Munster had ever shewn Lady Frances, the impressions she entertained of the sourness of his disposition, and the severity of his temper; all conspired to fill her with the greatest awe and dread of his displeasure. It may then be easily judged how badly qualified she was for the office enjoined her in the letter. To add to her distress, her valuable friend Mrs. Norden was absent, and she dared not conceal the receipt of it until her return, as it was a subject that admitted of no delay.

      She accordingly summoned up sufficient courage to take the letter in her hand, and to present herself before her father; when her timidity and confusion were sufficient vouchers of her unwillingness to be an agent in such a disagreeable business. Her apprehensions were considerably increased, when the earl asked her, in a harsh tone, her business with him? Being unable to reply, and trembling from head to foot, she gave him the letter—which he eagerly pursued, while he was alternately agitated with indignation, pride, and confusion! He at length broke into a great rage, loading Lady Frances with invectives, for having innocently produced these emotions, adding, that he then discovered the cause of her partiality for Miss Burt: but that if she, or Lord Finlay, ever presumed, from that time forward, to hold any communication with the Burt family, he should consider them as aliens to his! Where friendship is reversed, and turned to enmity, the latter is generally as extreme, as the former was fervent. If we were more regular in our affections, we should be more moderate in our aversions, and, without consulting our interest, should hate nothing but what is really odious: but we are so unjust, that we judge only of things by their relation to us; we approve of them when agreeable to us, and, by a strange infatuation, do not esteem them as good or bad, but by the satisfaction of disgust they give us: we would have them alter their quality according to our caprices, and cameleon like, assume our colours, and accommodate themselves to our desires. We fain would be the center of the world, and have all creatures join with us in inclination. Lord Munster was not only disappointed in his affections, but piqued in pride, that, after he had by his intrigues led some of the first princes in Europe, and made them subservient to his views, a little obscure girl should render him the laughing-stock of the country. Lady Frances retired, not daring to return him any answer.

      Lord Finlay met her, and, alarmed at her appearance, followed her into her apartment, intreating to know the subject of the letters she had received from Miss Burt! She informed him of it, and the disagreeable task she had just executed; when his looks very soon (to one of her penetration) betrayed the situation of his heart. He owned to Lady Frances that his life depended on Miss Burt, their mutual affection, and the violence he had done his inclinations, by the obligations he had imposed on himself to subdue his passion whilst it interfered with his father: but remarked with joy, that he was now relieved from such a painful effort. 'The Almighty,' said he, 'my dear sister,' (for he was in a state of mind which both inclined him to be wise and kind) 'implanted both reason and the passions in human nature, mutually to conduce to men's happiness. But, in order to become a happy creature, man is not blindly to follow the impulses of his passion to the exclusion of reason: nor is he to contradict his natural desires but when they invert the order of nature, and oppose the common good of society, the dictates of right reason, and the manifest design of Providence.—I have done what man could do,' added he; 'I did not interfere when my father was concerned; but I will not relinquish the object of my affections to any other man breathing.' This was Lord Finlay's philosophy, which he strictly adhered to—Tremblingly alive to his interest, Lady Frances told him the risque he would run of his father's displeasure; but the impetuosity of his passion rendered him deaf to her remonstrances; and, regardless of everything but its gratification, he sat

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