and sat down without a syllable; while I was too much overpowered by his mode of greeting, to utter one word of welcome.

Lord Hartston is miserably altered; severely, indeed, must he have suffered to be thus reduced. Yet the physicians assure Herbert that there is no further cause for alarm; that his constitution has received no material injury from thẻ shock; that, with care and quiet, a few months will suffice to restore him. He ought certainly to resign office. Herbert and his other friends ought strenuously to advise him to resign office. But most unfortunately, his majesty, who visited him in person previously to his leaving town, made it an earnest request that he would neither occupy himself with public business till the meeting of parliament, nor decide, till then, upon his future plans. The king, they say, was much affected by the interview. He paid also a visit of congratulation to Lady Hartston.

Tuesday.-Isabella and Lord Southam have been here; but judiciously and kindly abstained from seeing the invalid: they came only as a mark of respect. While Herbert was relating to Lord S. the sufferings undergone by their friend during the extraction of the ball, and describing the mildness and patience of Lord Hartston throughout his illness, I saw the tears standing in their eyes. How I love this weakness on the part of two men of such manly natures! I am not surprised that Armine and Isabella are so strongly attached to their husbands.

Wednesday. I have been trying to persuade the Herberts that I ought to join Lady Cecilia at Wardencliffe, at a time she is experiencing so much vexation; but they will not hear of it. Sir Henry protests it would be most unkind of me to quit my sister now his whole attention is engrossed by his friend. There is no possibility of escape.

*

August 29th.-The mornings are now too hot to admit of riding, driving, or even sauntering in the shrubberies. Yet Sir Henry continues to busy himself with his woods and farm; while Armine, who has just got a German governess for the little boys, passes her whole time in the school-room, to ascertain the merits of her system. They treat me with very little ceremony; for the task of entertaining the invalid has by these means been left

almost entirely upon my hands. My sister invariably addresses me after breakfast, in Lord Hartston's presence, with "I must trust to you, dear Harriet, not to leave our friend alone. Just now I am so arduously occupied with Mrs. Arnstein, that it is out of my power to read to him or be his amanuensis. You, who are an idle woman, will kindly supply my place. Bring your work here, or the volume of De Jocqueville you began yesterday; and do not let Lord Hartston tire himself with talking.' And thus I am peremptorily installed companion to Herbert's friend! They ought not to have invited him to Trentwood, unless they intended to pay him more attention.

There is some compensation, however, in perceiving how rapidly Lord Hartston is regaining his strength and spirits. He is beginning to enjoy himself as much as any of us. Yesterday afternoon, being cloudy and cool, we drove over in the open carriage to Southam Castle; and the preceding evening, while Sir Henry and my sister were riding together, we took a long stroll, accompanied by little Montresor, in the park. I ought not, however, to be made thus responsible for the proceedings of the invalid; for, should he suffer from these exertions, I only shall be blamed.

I can no longer understand how I ever came to fancy myself in awe of this man. Never did I meet with a disposition so mild, so indulgent, so prone to favourable interpretation of the motives of others, or so diffident of his own. He could not be more sensible to the testimonials of interest recently bestowed on him by the nation, had his life been as useless and his position as obscure as that of a Sir Jenison Delaval or a Sir Robert Mardynville. All that he is, all that he has done, passes for less than nothing in his estimation. Heaven spare his life to realize the noble and patriotic projects still brightening his views for the public welfare! Lady Hartston arrives in a day or two, and will release me from my attendance. On the whole, I could dispense with her presence, for though I shall rejoice at recovering the command of my time, I cannot help fearing that the old lady will impose a restraint upon our family circle. At present we are very merry. Sir Henry and his wife are, and have reason to be, in the highest spirits; and I am positively surprised at the gaieté de cœur which, forming a most unsuspected part of Lord H.'s character, ex

Y

hibits itself now that he is released from the cares of office. This morning, we have been laughing heartily together over the presentation copy of Miss Wilhelmina Vinicombe's "Sketches in prose and worse." The way in which she has amplified our adventures between Calais and Coblentz, by the aid of her numberless epithets and the flights of her imagination, is perfectly astonishing. The scene at Laach (literally as prosaic as a German supper and beds could make it) figures between sonnet and sonnet in her pages, in a style to do honour to the Castle of Otranto or Anne Radcliffe's romances. Lord Hartston, says she, belongs to the arabesque school -all flourish about nothing. Luckily enough, the florid style in which she describes me and my proceedings will never lead the world to suspect poor insignificant Mrs. Delaval in "that lovely and accomplished friend whom I accompanied from the brilliant haunts of the fashionable world to the more picturesque districts of the continent."

I know not whether it was in associating with such people as the Farringtons and his other Bedfordshire worthies, but, by some means or other, Sir Henry Herbert has contracted an odious habit of persiflage, or rather of vulgar quizzing, to me, perfectly insupportable. For the last week I have noticed myself to be the object of significant looks and insinuations on his part, far from well bred, and as far from agreeable. Yesterday I ventured a serious remonstrance on the subject with my sister, and from something I extracted from her, strongly suspect, and greatly fear, that my unguarded correspondence with George Foster is no secret in the family. Not from wilful indiscretion on the part of the young man, but in his zeal to ensure the safe arrival of the letters to which I seemed to attach so much importance, he caused them to be franked by the chef du bureau of Lord Hartston's office; and on one occasion, when Herbert was in conversation with this gentleman, who is his intimate acquaintance, a letter addressed to Trentwood lying on the desk attracted my brother-in-law's notice, and drew forth the history of Foster's daily despatches. The young man might certainly be supposed to have maintained a correspondence with me on business of some other nature; but Herbert's smiles convince me he has guessed the truth, and I have been obliged frankly to explain to my sister that any further reference to the

subject will drive me away from Trentwood. I thought my brother-in-law had more tact.

Lady Hartston arrived to-day in time for dinner, and I was absolutely startled by the change in her manners and appearance. The old lady is in such high spirits, that it seems as if her son's danger and recovery had rendered her, for the first time, sensible of his value. She embraced Armine, and afterward, to my surprise, included me in the same ceremony; she has laid aside her mourning, and makes her appearance at Trentwood attired like the rest of the world. She is much gratified by the change which country air has wrought in Lord Hartston's appearance, and finds him looking far better than she expected.

This evening, while she was taking coffee with my sister before the arrival of the gentlemen, I walked across the lawn to the conservatory to admire a nightblowing Cereus, and, on returning, rather sooner perhaps than they expected, overheard the old lady observe to Armine-" In my opinion they are more deliberate than there is any occasion for. I stayed a week longer than I wished at the abbey, purposely to give Eustace time to settle it all before my arrival. When two people of their time of life are seriously and mutually attached, why not own it at once, and be happy ?"

This must have been said in allusion to Lord Hartston and myself. I shall quit Trentwood without further delay.

From breakfast-time, contrary to my usual custom, I passed this morning in my own room, on pretence of letters to write. There can be no further occasion for me to devote my time to a person who has now his own family on the spot; and the Herberts have scarcely acted fairly in placing me hitherto in a position liable, I find, to such unkind interpretation; but profoundly as they are occupied with each other, my sister and brother-in-law have no consideration for the feelings of any other human being.

Interrupted by Lady Hartston, who, Heaven knows why, chose to pay me a visit in my dressingroom, though sure of meeting me presently at dinner. She came, I fancy, to enlarge upon her obligations for the kindness I have shown her son during his convalescence, and with a degree of warmth I had scarcely ex

་

pected from her. I replied as coldly as I could, and in the course of conversation gave her to understand that, next week, I should be at Wardencliffe with the Delavals. She appeared surprised and vexed, for her own visit to Trentwood will probably be of much longer duration.

After so many contrarieties, so many difficulties, can it be possible that all is so easily settled at the last? Must I admit to myself that he had only to propose and be accepted that he has proposed and been acceptedthat I am, in short, pledged heart and hand to become the wife of Lord Hartston? The wife-again a wife!but oh! under what different omens from those which waited upon my first wilful engagement! Every one congratulates me as the most fortunate of human beings; and my inmost soul tells me that I am so. For more than a year did his better judgment resist the passion which, from the first moment of our meeting, attached him to the giddy Harriet; but now, approval and preference go together. He has studied my character; he pretends to see that the faults he had once the audacity to discover, were merely superficial; he now decides me to be perfection-the all he ever prayed for in a wife. At present, I have made no confessions in return; but, discerning as he is, may he not have guessed the truth-that my heart has been long and wholly his?

Dear Lady Hartston was, after all, the means of promoting a perfect understanding between us. How fortunate that she made up her mind to come to Trentwood! We might have spent the whole autumn together in doubts and misgivings, but for her active interposition. She, too, declares herself to be the happiest of mothers, her utmost desires being fulfilled. The Herberts are enchanted;-my kind friend Isabella perfectly approves ;I seem to have engaged myself to the man of my choice, only to impart pleasure to my friends.

Lady Hartston insists that the marriage shall take place next month, in order that our arrangements may not be broken in upon by the meeting of parliament. She fancies herself in a great hurry to become a dowager, and settle in Northamptonshire; and will probably succeed in having her own way, for all the world is on her side.