Emily had become necessary to his happiness, and he was determined to persevere while there was the slightest hopes of

success.

Wherever, therefore, Lady Emily went, there also was Hartley, watching her with the anxious eye of a guardian lover; sometimes endured, often scolded, but always attentive. He would designate himself her Mentor-she called him her tormentor; but in spite of their numerous disagreements, their hearts were coming to a better understanding every day, and Lady Emily felt herself better and better pleased, and much more gratified by the honest, ardent attachment of the plain Mr. Hartley, than she did with the fulsome attentions and flatteries of a dozen others, who rank themselves among the finest young men about town.

At this period, one of Mr. Fleming's boroughs becoming vacant, Henry Pomeroy was recalled from the Continent, where he had been travelling since he had taken his degrees at Oxford, to fill the vacant seat, and to accomplish the project of his mother and uncle, by marrying Amelia.

An alternate series of dissipation and study had driven Miss Wheeler from his heart, indeed from his remembrance. Still, when his thoughts recurred to that adventure, a burning blush would mount into his cheek, and his mortified vanity rouse him into invectives against the whole sex. Her deception had indeed given a dreadful chill to the warm feelings of his heart, and from that period till the present, he had been utterly indifferent to women. The sight of Amelia, however, whose beauty was really of the first order, and the idea that she was destined for his wife, once more made him ́ feel that he had a heart capable of loving; and the moment that this was felt, the natural impetuosity of his character returned.

His senses were captivated with the beauty of his cousin ; and deeming the coldness of her disposition to arise from mere maiden bashfulness, he entered with avidity into the schemes of his mother, as far as it regarded his union with Amelia.

Not so, however, with respect to the political schemes for the aggrandisement of the family, projected by Mr. Fleming. As to the change of name from Pomeroy to Fleming, that was perfectly indifferent to him, but in all the points of po litical opinion, they were as far asunder in their ideas as the antipodes.

Young, ardent, and impetuous, Henry thought, acted, and spoke, upon the principal points of modern politics, with a freedom of discussion that astonished and alarmed Mr. Fleming, who had never thought at all, but blindly followed in the track pursued by whoever happened to be in power.

Catholic Emancipation-Parliamentary Reform-the Abolition of Slavery-the Reduction of Taxes-March of Intellect-were the themes upon which Henry Pomeroy indulged, in the full power of youthful eloquence; and Mr. Fleming trembled, lest the schemes of ambition which he had been so long pursuing, should be destroyed by the maiden speech of his nephew.

These schemes had gradually increased in their extent, as he had felt the accumulation of his influence, since his accession by purchase to two more boroughs; and dreading lest the impetuosity of Henry's temper might undo all that he had been so long doing, he called him into the library to detail the whole of his projects. In this conversation, no longer content with a baronetcy, he stated that he had not only hinted at his expectations of a peerage, with a remainder to his nephew, but that it had actually been promised him; and this, accompanied by such talents as Henry possessed, he foresaw might lead to the highest honours of the

state.

Upon his favourite topic, even Mr. Fleming could be elo quent, and he portrayed to Henry all the splendours and advantages which awaited his adoption of the same political opinions with himself. Henry, however, was obstinate; he would submit to no compromise. If he accepted a seat in parliament, it must be with complete independence as to his ayes and noes."

It was in vain that Mr. Fleming attempted to show the ab surdity and folly of playing a game by which he could get nothing. Henry was obstinate, till his uncle, for the first time in his life, fell into a passion, dismissed him with violence, and determining to marry again, and have an heir of his own, to accomplish those darling schemes of ambition. which he had so long contemplated with delight, went to bed, and was found by his servant the next morning dead. Such an unusual event as a fit of passion had thrown the blood into his head, and occasioned apoplexy; and thus ended all the ambitious schemes of Mr. Fleming.

VOL. I.-14

1

THE extreme coldness of Mr. Fleming's disposition, and his steady pursuit of his ambitious projects, by shutting up all the kindlier feelings of his nature, had rendered him a person whose loss, either as a parent or friend, could not create any violent or lasting grief.

The most important event attending his death, was the opening and reading his will; by which it was found that the young ladies were made wards in Chancery, with a recommendation to be placed under the care and superintendence of their aunt-whose consent was in some measure rendered necessary to their marriage, by a large sum of money being made dependent upon its being obtained, and which was to be forfeited if either of her nieces married without it, and left entirely to the disposal of Lady Pomeroy.

A very few months were sufficient to dry the tears and console the mourners for Mr. Fleming's loss; and this man, so important in his own estimation, and without whom he actually thought the machine of the world could scarcely move, became nearly, if not totally, forgotten.

The family began to think of renewing all the projects of alliance which his death had intercepted. Trevor became again the same persevering persecutor of Lady Pomeroy that he had been before; but Lady Pomeroy had now more power, and determined to exert it.

Convinced that nothing could tend so much to the misery of Agnes as her marrying a younger brother, with such remote contingencies as Charles Trevor, she set her face decidedly against the match, and took upon herself to forbid his visits and attentions; and the more effectually to break off all intercourse between the young people, she also requested that Lady Emily would cease to be so constant an inmate of Grosvenor Square, and commanded Agnes to give up her friend.

Agnes, however, acknowledged no such authority as that which Lady Pomeroy seemed inclined to assume; and though she said nothing about Charles Trevor, she loudly protested she would not break off her intercourse with his sister-the friend of her childhood, the school-fellow of her heart,

All her

Lady Pomeroy was too firmly convinced that while this liaison existed, there was no chance of the brother's being discarded, to give up her point; and she determined to carry it, by removing to Fleming Hall, where no mixed society and large parties afforded the facilities for meeting, which were of course to be found in the circles of London. attempts were, however, attended with precisely the contrary effects to those which she anticipated; for the greater her opposition, the more determined and pertinacious became Trevor to succeed, and the more Agnes thought she saw the injustice of her aunt.

To do Lady Pomeroy justice, she had latterly been rather more particular in her inquiries with respect to Trevor; and in the midst of her questions of how many removes he was from the family-title, and what expectations he had from his numerous connexions, she had heard tales of vacillation of principle and of dissipation, upon which she determined to ground her opposition to the match; and trusted to do so with more success, when it was his character and conduct she condemned, rather than his want of fortune.

The fact was, that during the very short cessation of his intercourse with Agnes that Mr. Fleming's death had necessarily occasioned, he had fallen in with some of his former associates, and had been shamed by their ridicule into many of his old pursuits.

Lady Emily had witnessed this with pain; and was rejoiced when Agnes, again mixing in society, recalled her brother from a path, the pursuit of which must have lost her to him

for ever for, after all, it was the apparent constancy of his attachment that had the greatest charm for Agnes.

Reports, however, of this temporary defalcation of Trevor having reached the ears of Lady Pomeroy, she was not long in making them additional arguments against his encouragement by Agnes; but unfortunately the eagerness with which she used these arguments and repeated these rumours, defeated her own projects, and only tended to confirm Agnes in the idea she had formed of the unjust prejudices of her

aunt.

To the same account, or to the score of envy, were also placed several hints of the same nature, which she received from various intimates in her circle. But as these were also intimates of Lady Pomeroy, she attributed all they said to her instigation.

One circumstance about this time made a deeper impression on her mind than all these reports; which was an anonymous intimation to the same effect, which she found one night on her dressing table. It was written in an old-fashioned handwriting, and ran thus:

Proceed not hastily-listen to your friends. Trevor is not the man you suppose him to be. What his affection and your influence may effect, is still in the womb of time: but sacrifice not your happiness to an uncertainty. Your mind, disposition, temper, and pursuits, are dissimilar. He is vacillating and volatile, though ardent. If your heart be too far engaged to give him up entirely, at least take time try his constancy by absence. It is the advice of one who knows him better than you can—of one to whom your happiness is dearer than his own.

:

No inquiry that Agnes could make enabled her even to guess at the writer of this epistle; to which, in spite of her habitual contempt of anonymous information, she could not help giving more attention than she afterwards thought it deserved. The last sentence, however, admitting a misconstruction, and suggesting the idea that it might be the production of a rival, it was soon classed among the many other futile attempts to set her against Trevor. The handwriting too was so remarkable that it appeared feigned; and the lettor might therefore be the production of one of the many whom she knew her aunt employed to induce her to give up her lover.

At length, Lady Pomeroy's pursuits permitted her tempo