to a state of infant weakness, could utter nothing but convulsive sobs, though trying to speak intelligibly, and give some reply to the anxious inquiries which mingled with the soothing caresses of Catherine, as to the cause of her distress.

By degrees she became more calm; but not sufficiently so to give a very connected account of what had happened. The quick tact of Mrs. St. Aubyn did not, however, require more than the brief and sorrowful relation Matilda's exhausted spirits could afford.

"And could I have the heart to meet you as I did ?" said she, again and again pressing Matilda to her bosom. "But I thought, love, that you had neglected me."

"Not voluntarily," said Matlda, "I never did-I never could; for have you not ever been to me as kind —as kind did I say?—oh, how much kinder than my own mother!"

"Ah, my dear girl, your trials have been great indeed! and I am not at this moment without mine. But stubborn matters of fact have been your sorrows," said Mrs. St. Aubyn. "Mine," she continued, with a heavy sigh, "are more the result of restleness of spirit, yet not the less oppressive."

Matilda looked at her anxiously, and painfully ob served a manifest alteration in her appearance since last they met. Her form was shrunk-the animation of her fine expressive countenance had fled, and it was now pale and hollow; yet she appeared far more altered in mental than bodily health-not a ray of the sparkling intelligence, which seldom long forsook her features, remained. To Matilda's imagination she

realised a line in Milton; she was indeed, she thought,

"Exhausted, spiritless, aflicted, fallen."

Yet, with all this evident dejection about her, she appeared unwilling to yield to its influence, or to have it remarked; for, on Matilda's replying with deep interest to her last observation,

"Are you too a sufferer, dear Mrs. St. Aubyn ?" "A sufferer only from my own heart, Matilda,” said she, again sighing as it were unconsciously. But, repelling her feelings with a visible effort-" I have not been well," said she," of late, and Edmund has not been well,” and that has made me fret, and fretting makes one look like a ghost; in truth, I thought it was going to make a ghost of me, and Edmund thought so too, I believe, for he would insist upon my coming up to town, and talking to some of the medical people here; not but what it is the thing I hate worse than I can express, for they are such hor. rible barbarians they always frighten one out of one's wits!""

"They have not frightened you, I hope?" said Matilda.

་

"Not quite signed my death-warrant," she replied, with a languid smile ; " only ordered me to keep myself quiet or else I must die-that's all❞—

"Then do be quiet-pray do," said Matilda anxiously. "What can you have to make you otherwise than quiet?"

"The thoughts of death-and of eternity-Matilda; the thoughts of an immortal soul"-she replied,

with a solemnity that penetrated to the heart; and Matilda could utter no reply.

But after a short interval she spoke again, and in a tone less serious "Matilda, I am going to make a request to you," she said, " and if you love me you will comply with it."

"If you put it upon that footing," said Matilda, "I am sure I shall not do otherwise than comply with it; you have only to name it."

"It is to accompany me to-morrow to Brighton, whither I am recommended to repair for the benefit of the sea air. I shall propably stay some time : but you shall do as you like as to the length of your visit."

Matilda had only the natural reluctance of leaving Charles in the present sad crisis of his affairs, to oppose to this proposition: and till she heard the result of Mr. St. Aubyn's conference with him, could return no other answer than a sincere wish to do every thing that could give pleasure to her friend.

CHAPTER IX.

MR. ST. AUBYN returned in the course of the morning, bringing with him Charles himself. The means by which his liberation had been effected, Matilda learned with a feeling more humiliating and wretched than any she had yet experienced, was a loan for the amount of his debt from Mr. St. Aubyn. Charles himself appeared ashamed of having been reduced to these measures, and participated, though in a very inferior degree, in the misery they brought upon his wife. St. Aubyn, on his part, was the same considerate, affectionate friend in his demeanour to Matilda-the same watchful, tender son to his mother the same in his gentlemanlike, attentive deportment to Charles, as if all these agitating circumstances had never had any existence! and as if this day had brought him no more than any and every other day brought in the way of event.

No sooner was the Brighton scheme named in his hearing, than Charles caught at it for Matilda, with an eagerness that left her no power to decline it. The consciousness of misconduct threw a restraint over his manners, and made him so embarrassed and miserable in the presence of his wife, and those he knew to be particularly attached to her, (and consequently, as he imagined, in their hearts more espe

cially incensed against him,) that he hailed it as an unexpected relief, so soon to be released from those further obligations, which, in the present state of his affairs, he would otherwise have been compelled to receive from them.

. He obviated every objection of Matilda's to leaving him, by placing before her the real advantage her absence for a week or two would be to him at the present juncture. He had lodgings to seek, he told her he had plans to form, &c. &c.

Matilda sickened at the very thought of his plans; but too well knowing that she had no influence in promoting them, of whatever kind they might be, she yielded to his wishes and the pressing instances of both Mr. and Mrs. St. Aubyn, and accompanied the latter to Brighton. Mr. St. Aubyn, on finding his mother provided with a companion so agreeable to her, but so dangerous to himself, postponed his design of attending her for the present; and Catherine, understanding and respecting his motive, was wholly silent on hearing his change of intention.

In defiance of her visible endeavours to dissipate thought, and her occasional success in appearing cheerful, there was generally such a languor and list. lessness in Mrs. S. Aubyn's manners, as convinced Matilda that some source of uneasiness affected her spirits, beyond what she chose to acknowledge.

And such indeed was the case, though she strove to the utmost to conceal its existence. The fact was, that, ever since the extinction of those hopes, which every human being that loves, unconsciously cherishes, ever since Matilda's marriage, St. Aubyn had been a disappointed-an unhappy man,

The