éclat; if we procrastinate longer, I fear our denouement will be trite and uninteresting.

"ISADORA ARGYLE."

To Miss Argyle.

Dearest, dearest Isadora, I fly to you! What a fortnight has this last been! separated from you, how cheerless an aspect has every thing worn! But it has been of service to me; I have searched into my own heart, and I have proved how perfectly that doating heart acquits you.

"You are right; you have not erred! If you loved me, you could not be indifferent to the suggestions of a letter so written, so artfully contrived to engage your compassion for its supposed writer! You were offended ; suffer me to enjoy the bliss of the implication.

"Dear, lovely tyrant, use your graceful méchanceté as you please; I cannot but admire and applaud it. Did I, indeed, write that you had sunk yourself in my opinion? erase the hateful line, and forget that my madness ever penned it!

"Enjoy your triumph; your victory is my pride; suffer me likewise to triumph in your pardon.

"When are you to expect me? Did you think, my haughty Isadora, that I should allow you leisure to collect all the coldness and pride you can so well assume? I am not a Catholic; VOL. II.

22

and I do not suppose that my Heaven is to be purchased by voluntary sufferings and torments. You receive this from my courier you read it with-may I say, with pleasure In an instant I am at your feet: do not refuse me the welcome I anticipate.

"MONTAGUE."

CHAP. XXIII.

There her hopes

Rest at the fated goal. For from the birth
Of mortal man, the sov'reign Maker said,
That not in humble or in brief delight,
Not in the fading echoes of renown,

Power's purple robes, or pleasure's flow'ry lap,
The soul should find enjoyment.

AKENSIDE.

"MARRIED:---on Wednesday last, at Harwell Castle, by the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of C, the Right Honourable Algernon Fitzroy, Earl of Moutague, Viscount Arlingham, Baron Montague, Knight of the most noble order of the Garter, &c. &c. &c., to Isadora, only daughter of the late Clement Argyle, Esq. of Harwell Castle in Devonshire, and of Avon Park in the county of Cumberland. Immediately after the ceremony, the noble pair proceeded to Montague Castle in Surrey, where it is supposed they will remain. till after Christmas."

The morning of that day had dawned gloriously; not a cloud flitted over the pure azure of the heavens, or obstructed the beams of a

clear, brilliant winter's sun. Lord Montague received from the hands of Mr. Walworth, the best reward of learning, distinction, and unsullied honour. If the rapture of the moment was susceptible of the slightest diminution, it was occasioned by that tender regret naturally induced in their minds by the remembrance of the friend whose voice would doubly have consecrated their union. It was a high satisfaction, however, to reflect, that in prophetic anticipation of this moment, he had prayed for that happiness he had not lived to witness.

But the nuptial benison was pronounced the voice of the distinguished Bishop of Chad consecrated their union; it blest them and they were blest! Yes! the rapturous sensation, the perfect conviction, that they were now exclusively bound to each other; that neither must cherish a thought which the other might not share; that all their future happiness or woe would be in common---was bliss! It was not expressed by the tumultuous overflowings of rapture, but by the deep and sacred silence of happiness; it shone in the lustre of their eyes, and was enthroned in the tranquil seriousness of their countenances ;---no impassioned exclamation sullied its purity, or shadowed it with the dross of this world.

That enthusiasm of which Lord Montague had so often doubted the existence, now irradiated the manner of Isadora to himself with its brightest beams; it emanated from a heart entirely devoted to him, with an ardour and a purity that at once delighted and softened him.

Grosvenor and the happy Lady Anne are frequent witnesses of the happiness of the Earl and Countess, to which their own is not inferior. Grosvenor still finds a guide, a counsellor, a friend, in the Earl; when a cloud shades his brow, his friends remember the dangers from which Lord Montague preserved him, and rejoice that this cloud is the only memorial that

such weakness ever existed.

The Reverend Mr. Flash no longer disgraces the church of England; his detection by Lord Montague was soon perfectly known, and his diocesan no longer permitted him to shroud his iniquity in that sacred garb which he had rendered impure and unholy.

He accompanied his patron Lord Percival and the unfortunate Lady Clervaux to Ireland ; there, the united extravagance of the trio soon exhausted those resources obtained by the most fraudulent practices, and, unable to accommodate themselves to their narrow circumstances, they defrauded the unsuspecting tradesmen with whom they dealt of sums to a vast amount, and absconded with them into France.

At this period the action for damages brought by Sir Thomas Clervaux against Lord Percival Lorn, came to issue; the award was heavy, and Lord Percival had only to congratulate himself on having escaped from England before that award was made.

Lady Clervaux sought in vain for that happiness which she had promised to herself in the society of Lord Percival Lorn. He refused to marry her; and notwithstanding this,

restrained her with mad jealousy from associating with those people, who were yet willing to admit her into their houses, lest she should forsake him, as she had done that husband, with whom she had lived in honour, and, as far as she was capable of enjoying it, in happiness.

But all his caution was vain; Lady Clervaux, abhorring the tyranny that was exercised on her, escaped from him, and threw herself under the protection of a French petitmaitre, whose desire of possessing her was induced merely by the wish of having in his keeping the prettiest Englishwoman in France.

With this Frenchman she still exists, compelled to accommodate herself to his fantastical humours, and to indulge the continual caprices, with which he torments her. Always regretting that home and that country she forsook, harrowed by the frightful images which an accusing conscience presents to her, she drags on a wretched existence, incapable of deriving enjoyment from the present, and loathing the prospect of the future: already, in early youth, bowed down by the pressure of sickness and decay; almost wishing for death as the only means of escape from the evils that harass her, yet dreading it as the certain precursor of horrors of which she cannot even form a conception, earth does not present a more pitiable object, or a more dreadful illustration of those misfortunes, and that. punishment, which Deism always induces.

Lord Percival Lorn, irritated by the deser