voted him the best man and the grandest gentleman ever beheld in the neighbourhood."

Since the time of his marriage he had very seldom left home, and was always absent only for a short time, and punctual as to the very hour named for his return; but it so happened that in the very midst of his rejoicings an express arrived which compelled him to quit his joyous home, as fast as a post-chaise and four could convey him, and as he confessed to his weeping, but confiding wife, for an indefinite period, during which he desired that both her parents would remain with her. When a fortnight had passed, and only one short and mysteriously worded note had found its way to the invalid, rumours again revived to the disadvantage of the absent, and his late profusion was deemed the farewell boon of a splendid robber. Another week passed, and the parents shared the alarm, but the wife did not. She sought only to recover her strength, to nurse the babe of whom her beloved was so proud, and to wait patiently for his appear

ance.

The sound of carriage wheels drew every creature to the door the beginning of the fourth week, when they beheld, with astonishment, the master return ing in a coach drawn by six noble horses, followed by outriders, and making altogether such an exhibition as had never been seen in the parish of B- before. The servants were all in mourning, so, too, was their master, who on alighting sprang into the entrance of his dwelling, clasped to his bosom the pale, but lovely one who was hastening to meet him, and proclaimed her to those around the "Countess of Exeter."

His absence was easily explained, together with his reasons for past concealment, and the satisfaction he had enjoyed in believing himself be loved so tenderly by one who had never heard till now of the high for tunes which awaited her. Happy would it have been for her if she had never known them, for it was certain that her best days were past in that retirement from which she was now doomed to emerge, and which (with a

handsome income) the earl settled on her parents. It has been always said, that the grandeur of Burleigh House, to which she was immediately removed, pressed upon her spirits, withered her young heart's innocent cheerfulness, and gave her a sense of being unfit for the high station she filled, of the most distressing character. Various aneedotes were in circulation as to her dread of appearing at court, the peculiar kindness of the queen towards her, and the pains taken by the earl to encourage and sustain her in those trials of fortitude to which the duties of her rank rendered her subject. Her nature was essentially feminine and gentle; the cares of a very superior man had for more than two years been given to her improvement, and she was naturally acute and habitually active, so that we can hardly doubt that, with a person uncommonly elegant, and features singularly delicate and intelligent, she might have passed through the highest circles unmarked for deficiency, and admired for personal attraction, had she possessed the nerve to try.

But, alas! her very abilities taught her to observe the difference between habitual ease and conscious adoption of manners, and her very adoration of her husband led her to the conclusion of her own unworthy elevation. In the liberality of her views, the charity and unbounded benevolence of her conduct, the quiet, but dignified, performance of her ordinary duties, as mistress and as mother, she has left behind her a character of which her son, the present Marquis of Exeter, may well be proud; but yet her timid nature shrunk beneath the glare of that splendour by which she was surrounded, and after being long an invalid, she had not strength to survive the birth of her second son, but sunk gently into the grave, for which she had long sought to prepare herself, beloved by all who knew her, and deeply regretted by her numerous dependents.

The earl was for nearly four years a widower, and unquestionably much of that time a sincere mourner, but we may suppose that, like the hero of Lord Mulgrave's story, he had, during his late wedded life, discovered that,

although there may be much love in a marriage thus constructed, there can be little of that union of ideas, that sense of friendship and full confidence of heart in each other, which belongs to equality of condition, education, and affection; he, therefore, for his third wife, took one very distinct alike from the heiress of a country gentleman and the daughter of a peasant, being no less a personage than a duchess, the widow of the Duke of Hamilton.

With this lady he was said not to enjoy the happiness he merited, and frequently be compelled to regret the humble and obedient being to whom his smiles were as the light of day. She brought him no rivals to his Sarah's children, on whom he lavished all a father's love, but he died whilst they were still very young, surviving his third marriage only two or three years, and after all this eventful his tory falling in the meridian of life.

In the meantime the unhappy woman who was his first partner, after losing the object of her sincere, but guilty attachment, had returned unwillingly to her country, under all those circumstances of distress which belong ed to her situation as a convicted adultress and a bereaved widow, smarting under the infliction of disgrace, and the grief inevitable to a loss which, in her case, combined every domestic tie. To these sorrows were also, for the present, added that of poverty, since her fortune had been reduced before her separation, and from her funds alone could the sum in which the unhappy partner of her guilt was cast be liquidated, and the many harpies of the law attendant on such concerns be satisfied. Shrinking from every eye, she sought only to hide herself and her miseries in the mansion which had been settled upon her; but as she could not subsist there without the interference of some legal friend, who would collect the remnant of her noble fortune, and save her from personal interference, after some time she fixed upon a Counsellor Phillips for that purpose, as having been known and esteemed by her father.

After some years had passed, and

by his exertions she had been replaced in comparative affluence, this gentleman became her husband, but she still persisted in hiding herself from the world, and bore in her personal appearance, and her carriage, every symptom of penitence, sorrow, and shame, incident to her early history. She could never be seen out of the grounds which surrounded her mansion, save at the nearest church, which she always visited on foot, if the weather permitted, and arrayed so plainly that she could attain her pew without observation, save from strangers, who could hardly fail to be struck by the graceful form of one who evidently sought to elude every eye, and was yet so superior to all around her. Such was her situation and conduct when I was in her neighbourhood about thirty years since, at which time the two persons whose union with each other laid the foundation of so much unhappiness, were married to their third partners, a circumstance not easily paralleled as to its singularity.

The principal circumstances of this history are unhappily preserved in the records of the law and of the grave; others have been given to me by a neighbour of the countess, who knew her in childhood, and watched over the progress of her lord's courtship, marriage, and discovery, being, as he confessed, one of those who believed him to be "no better than he should be." If to this brief survey of his history we bring the aid of imagination, in order to depict the many struggles of pride, disappointment, love, tenderness, and honour-of solicitude to maintain dignity, and affection abandoned to its object, finding its all of bliss in one artless bosom, yet compelled to own its insufficiency for happiness, what singular positions in feeling and situation do we contemplate.

If we turn to other actors in the drama, how much do we find to investigate, slowly and mournfully, for by such steps were the pious and the virtuous led to their destruction.— Never did the pen of a novelist, or the conception of a tragic poet, delineate such woe as that which devoured and consumed a man, who in his very guilt