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cert begun; Miss Hanmer played a sonata, and Miss Tracey sung a bravura song with great execution. Julia was then called upon to play, but she timidly answered, that she never played lessons.

"But you sing?" said Miss Hanmer.

"Sometimes; but I beg to be excused singing now." "What! you will not sing neither?" said Mr. Beresford. "I cannot sing now, indeed, Sir, I am not well enough, and I tremble so much that I have not a steady note in my voice."

"So, Miss," whispered Mr. Beresford, "and this is what I get in return for having squandered so much money on your education!"

The Miss Traceys were then applied to; and they sung, with great applause, a difficult Italian duo, and were complimented into the bargain on their readiness to oblige. Poor Julia!

"You see, Miss Beresford, how silly and contemptible you look," whispered Beresford, "while those squalling Misses run away with all the admiration."

"

Julia's persecutions were not yet over. Though you are not well enough, Miss Beresford, to sing a song," said Mr. Hanmer," which requires much exertion, surely you can sing a ballad without music, which is, I am told, your forte." "So I have heard," cried Sir Frederic; "do, Miss Beresford, oblige us."

"Do," said the Miss Traceys; " and we have a claim on you."

"I own it," cried Julia, in a voice scarcely audible; "but you, who are such proficients in music, must know, that to sing a simple ballad requires more self-possession and steadiness of tone than any other kind of singing, as all the merit depends on the clearness of utterance, and the power of sustaining the notes."

"True; but do try."

"Indeed, I cannot ;" and shrugging up their shoulders, the ladies desisted from further importunities. "I am so surprised," said one of them to the other, leaning across two or three gentlemen; "I had heard that Miss Beresford was remarkably good humoured and obliging, and she seems quite sullen and obstinate; do not you think so?"

"Oh dear, yes! and not obliging at all."

"No indeed!" cried Miss Hanmer, "she seems to presume on her wealth, I think; what think you, gentlemen?"

But the gentlemen were not so hasty in their judgments, two of them only observed, that Miss Beresford was in no respect like herself that day.

"I do not think she is well," said the baronet.

"Perhaps she is in love," said Miss Tracey, laughing at the shrewdness of her own observation.

"Perhaps so," replied Sir Frederic, thoughtfully.

The concert being over, the company adjourned to an elegant entertainment, set out in an open pavilion in the park, which commanded a most lovely view of the adjacent country.

Julia seated herself near the entrance; the baronet placed himself between the two lovely sisters; and Beresford, in order to be able to vent his spleen every now and then in his daughter's ear, took a chair beside her..

The collation had every delicacy to tempt the palate, and every decoration to gratify the taste, and all, except the pensive Julia, seemed to enjoy it; when, as she was leaning from the door to speak to a lady at the head of the table, a little boy, about ten years' old, peeped into the pavilion, as if anxiously looking for some one.

The child was so clean, and so neat in his dress, that a gentleman near him patted his curly head, and asked him what he wanted.

"A lady.

"But what lady? here is one, and a pretty one too," shewing the lady next him; "will not she do?

"Oh, no! she is not my lady," replied the boy.

At this moment Julia turned round, and the little boy, clapping his hands, exclaimed, "Oh, that's she, that's she!" Then running out, he cried, "Mother, mother! father, father! here she is, we have found her at last!" and before Julia, who suspected what was to follow, could leave her place, and get out of the pavilion, the poor man and woman whom she had relieved, and their now well clothed happy-looking family, appeared before the door of it.

"What does all this mean?" cried Mr. Hanmer. "Good people, whom do you want?"

"We come, Sir," cried the man, "in search of that young lady," pointing to Julia, "as we could not go from the neighbourhood without coming to thank and bless her; for she saved me from going for a soldier, and my wife and children from a workhouse, Sir, and made me and mine as comfortable as you now see us.".

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"Dear father, let me pass, pray do!" cried Julia, trembling with emotion, and oppressed with ingenuous modesty. "Stay where you are, girl," cried Beresford, in a voice between laughing and crying.

"Well, but how came you hither?" cried Mr. Hanmer, who began to think this was a premeditated scheme of Julia's to shew off before the company.

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"Why, Sir, shall I tell the whole story?" asked the man. No, no, pray go away," cried Julia, " and I'll come and speak to you.'

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By no means," cried the baronet eagerly; "the story, the story, if you please."

The man then began, and related Julia's meeting him and his family, her having relieved them, and then running away to avoid their thanks, and to prevent her being followed, as it seemed, and being known. That, resolved not to rest till they had learnt the name of their benefactress, they had described her person and her dress. "But, bless your honour," interrupted the woman, "when we said what she had done for us, we had not to ask any more, for every one said it could be nobody but Miss Julia Beresford !"

Here Julia hid her face on her father's shoulder, and the company said not a word. The young ladies appeared conscience-struck; for it seemed that no one in the neighbourhood (and they were of it) could do a kind action but Miss Julia Beresford.

"Well, my good man, go on," cried Beresford, gently. "Well, Sir, yesterday I heard that if I went to live at a market town four miles off, I could get more work to do than I have in my own village, and employ for my little boy too; so we resolved to go and try our luck there; but we could not be easy to go away, without coming to thank and bless that good young lady; so hearing at her house that she was come hither, we made bold to follow her; your servants told us where to find her-ah, bless her!-thanks to her, I can afford to hire a cart for my poor sick wife and family!"

"And Miss, Miss," cried the little boy, pulling Julia by the arm, "only think, we shall ride in a cart, with a tall horse; and brother and I have got new shoes, only look!"

But Miss was crying, and did not like to look; however, she made an effort and looked up, but was forced to turn away her head again, overset by a "God bless you!" heartily pronounced by the poor woman, and echoed by the

man.

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