towards her, since the masquerade, had augmented to utter abhorrence.

In the delights of friendship, in social converse, and in the moderate enjoyment of the elegant and refined pleasures which the capital affords, the next two months flew rapidly away. They were the happiest days which Mary had spent since she was banished from the abode of her youth.

With Mr. Murray she could converse of the friends absent and dear to her heart. While she joined him in lamenting the pertinacity with which sir Simon Frazer continued to neglect and contemn his inestimable wife, and to persecute his unoffending kinsman, her heart fluttered with joy as he described the daily improvement of William Frazer, or dwelt on the prospect of Bouverie's speedy re

turn.

In proportion to the pleasure she derived from his society, was the painful feelings with which she heard the period

fixed for the return of himself and his brother to Scotland. Yet one bright gleam was shed on her dreary prospects. In a few weeks sir Theodosius Beaumont and his family were to leave London for his estate in Gloucestershire, from whence they were to set out in August for the north, where the affectionate girl would once more be pressed to the heart of her kind friends and protectors of her youth. With this hope in view, she bade adieu to the worthy solicitor with more calmness than she had herself conceived possible.

Henrietta sunk into a kind of listless inactivity after the departure of her father and uncle. The efforts of Mary to amuse her not only failed to effect that purpose, but were received in a manner calculated to shew that they were disagreeable.

The high-minded girl would have been more hurt at this apparent diminu

tion

tion of her regard, had not the same fitful caprice marked her conduct towards sir Theodosius. Frequently would she receive from him the common offices of politeness with an air of haughty indif ference, while at other times she would fix her eyes on his face with an expression of the most mournful tenderness, till her eyes filled with tears. The fact was, that the iron fangs of jealousy had stuck fast in her heart. The hints and insinuations of Mrs. Lessington, though at first little noticed, as well as the warning of the seer on the night of the masquerade, had made in the end so powerful an impression on her mind, that neither the honour of her husband's character, nor the tried virtue of her early friend, could wholly obliterate the painful doubts to which they gave rise.

Restless and unhappy, she watched every look, every word of the baronet with the most intense anxiety, drawing from

from his most simple actions food for the baneful passion that already consumed her.

Pained at this strange alteration in the manners of her friend, Mary grieved that she had not returned to Scotland under the escort of the worthy solicitor; but as the period of Henrietta's promised visit to the north was not far distant, she endeavoured to arm herself with patience to await its arrival.

In the mean time, lady Beaumont sought by incessant dissipation to banish from her memory the painful ideas which had robbed her of happiness. Balls, concerts, the opera, and even the gaming-table, occupied her evenings, while her mornings were either consumed in listening to the tonish loungers who crowded her breakfast-saloon, or in driving to the fashionable resorts of the idle and the dissipated.

The well-regulated mind of Mary turned with loathing from this mode of spending

spending her time, and she sought refuge in her own apartments from the folly by which she was surrounded.

Sometimes she indulged herself in a walk in Hyde Park, at an hour too early to fear interruption from the giddy throng who crowd its walks at a later period of the day. Attended one morning by Peter, she entered by CumberlandGate, and having dismissed the domestic, with orders to return in a couple of hours to the same spot, she slowly proceeded to the banks of the Serpentine River. Sauntering along its banks, mus-, ing on her own desolate state, and vainly endeavouring to account for the wayward conduct of lady Beaumont, time passed away unheeded till her name was uttered by some one near her. Looking up, she beheld with surprise count, Neurenburgh, who immediately joined her.

The count was not a visitor in the house of sir Theodosius Beaumont, nevertheless she had been introduced to