py rival, behold me at your feet!—prostrate before you, I plead for him in agony of supplication! I resign myself to your disposal ;dictate terms to me the most severe that humanity can endure, and yet bid me live to bleed under them ;-take from me the privilege of complaint ;-bid me seem happy and boast of my felicity-bid me tear from my heart the worshipped image of its idol-I obey! no sacrifice is too great, no torment too exquisite, to be compensated by the blessing I beg at your hands.

"Lady, you know not a mother's hopes, a mother's fears--a mother's delights, and a mother's agonies! But if, in future years, these sensations shall divide your heart with himthe Montague, who reigns there; if, encircled by a group of blooming innocents, in whose smiling eyes you discover the intelligence of their father's spirit, you contemplate with a prophetic eye the brilliancy of their future life, then you will recollect the misery that must have rent the heart of her who, covered with humiliation, at this moment addresses you : then you will weep the woes of this unhappy being then you will commend the result of a conflict between pride and maternal affectionbetween love for the betrayer, and tenderness for the guiltless youth who owes his existence to him!

"And yet this tenderness, all-powerful as it is, would have been sacrificed to the happiness of his father, if, for a moment, I imagined that this information would obstruct his happiness. But no!--you, lady, will not fear

the influence of the poor wretch whose love betrayed her into crime! your virtues, your beau, ty, your graces, and your rank, will equally preserve you from desertion! Alas! once I had all these once I was pre-eminent in each! but love undid me; love hurled me from my eleva- . tion; I adored-was deserted, and undone!

"Ah, Heaven! how dare I expect that you should pity a parent's agonies! Was not I deaf to them! Did I not listen to a mother's prayers and a father's curse with indifference? Oh, will not that strong curse pursue me? Will it not surround my devoted child, and shut it out from sympathy and assistance? Oh! how heavily has that malediction fallen on my head! Yet I endure it-the whole weight of it; and still pray Heaven to bless him who brought it on me! Forgive me, lady: the blow has been heavy, and I still writhe beneath it.

"I supplicate for my son: save him, madam, from the obscurity that threatens him; place him in a situation to which he is entitled by birth, by talents, and by a concentration of those high endowments, that stamp him of the line of Montague!

"I inclose my address: condescend to see me: I need not ask you to keep this application secret from Lord Montague! What could be gained from a disclosure? Under the influfluence of love, would he admit a fact which might obstruct his happiness? Alas, madam! you need not be assured that he would not.

"I supplicate for an interview; the manner

of it, you will direct.

"The unhappy

"EMMA !

Miss Argyle read this letter with the most overwhelming emotions-emotions not a little increased by the conviction that her very existence depended on the love of Lord Montague.

What a moment was this! He was displayed to her as a betrayer, and a deserter of the woman whom he had so betrayed!

What numberless coincidences were suggested to her mind, to stamp the narrative with truth! The deserted, the unhappy Emma, was the unfortunate heroine of those poems to which accident had introduced her. Her idea had imparted that peculiar manner to Lord Montague, which she had hitherto considered the effect of his knowledge of the world. What an unhappy combination! what a train of reasoning it induced!

Whilst she was yet undetermined how to act, her breast torn by the conflicting emotions of love, anger, and pity-shrinking from the contemplation of the state of her own heartdismayed to find how strongly the image of Lord Montague was impressed there---so strongly that it seemed to triumph over every other feeling-that very Lord Montague en

tered.

which she could not repress; her heart involuntarily closed against him, and a frigid bow answered his animated salutation.

Lord Montague started, rather grieved than offended, yet in his grief preserving a shade of haughtiness never totally distinct from any trait of his character; he delivered to her the message with which he was charged by Lady Anne Grosvenor.

Isadora listened with an air of abstraction, and when he had finished, turned away, without reply.

Lord Montague sighed heavily; Isadora looked at him earnestly, and, for an instant, forgot the unfortunate Emma.

My lord," she began ;-he turned round; she lost the power of proceeding.

Alas, Isadora, how have I offended you?" said he, in a voice of tender entreaty.

He spoke to her with surpassing eloquence; he laid open his whole heart to her view; it was the eloquence of a lover, free, characteristic, and unstudied: there were no finely rounded periods, nor affectation of flowery oratory; the heart dictated, and the language of the heart is simple, beautiful, and fascinating.

The letter, the fatal letter, pleaded powerfully against him. Ought she to show it to him, freely confess her doubts, and demand an explanation ?

The writer apeared most unhappy, and the unhappy were deserving of the greatest delicacy. She had begged concealment; she had

solicited, above all, that Lord Montague might not be informed of her application.

But was the request of an anonymous being to be observed with such scrupulous delicacy? was she to be placed in competition with the happiness of two beings, which her information, unless controverted, must destroy for ever?

Was she-this degraded female---by herself acknowledged to be degraded---to possess sufficient power over the mind of Miss Argyle, as to induce her to believe all the letter asserted, in direct contradiction to her own experience and observation.

Was she to reject Lord Montague on the information of a nameless individual, who had offered assertion for proof, and whose chief claim to belief was the pathetic style of her address?

Was she to believe Lord Montague a seducer, a deserter, instead of the noble, dignified character, whom the Bishop of

had been proud to call his friend; who had restored Grosvenor to virtue and to happiness; whom --yes----whom Isadora Argyle loved with before unimagined ardour?

These considerations passed rapidly over her mind ;---in an instant the letter was in the hand of Lord Montague.

He read it over calmly; she observed his countenance with much anxiety, and some apprehension. "Does such a power of deceiving belong to man? or is he,---oh, îs he in

nocent ?"

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