nieces, whose fortunes were not likely to be affluent. Deserted by all the world, she entered precipitately into a second marriage, with a person of plausible appearance and showy manners, and who had lived much abroad; but of whose conduct, character, or temper, she previously knew nothing. He had no habitation of his own, had been accustomed to a wandering life, and did not seem inclined to settle any where. He immediately sold all her furniture, dismissed her servants, disposed of her landed property, and then went from place to place without a single attendant, taking lodgings sometimes in farm-houses, and sometimes at different inns, in various parts of the kingdom. One while they had a small apartment in an ordinary public-house, close by the gates of the mansion of her first husband's father, where she had formerly presided as mistress, and who lived in great affluence and respectability. I know not whether she is yet living; but it is now many years since she wrote a cold, formal letter to her sister, telling her that she and her young people, must not expect any thing from her, for that she had given her whole fortune to her husband, as the reward of his extraordinary merit, but she did not say in what that merit consisted. The last authentic account I heard of her, was the following:

Travelling about twenty years ago, in a northern district of this county, we stopped at an inn, where I recognized the landlord, as having formerly been servant at the deanery; and I asked him of course, if he knew what was become of his former mistress ?—"O yes," he replied, "she is married again, and the last summer, she and her husband had a bed-room in my house four. months, with the use of a dining-room, when it could be spared them."-"And did he behave well to her?"

"I believe he did; for one day he called me into the room, and said, that perhaps I might have heard many things to his disadvantage, but he was going to convince me from Mrs. N's. own mouth, that they were untrue.— Then turning to her, he enquired. Do I not make you a very good husband, madam.' She instantly replied, "Yes, indeed, Sir, you do, a very good husband.'" Does the reader require any other proof of their conjugal felicity?

How different has been the history and fate of that sister, who in early life, was completely eclipsed by the superior attractions of Mrs. N. She married also, and was left a widow many years ago; and although not without her share of sorrows and anxieties, and disappointments, she bore them with fortitude, and they led her to seek for consolation, where alone it can really be found. Although her circumstances were not affluent. she was a great benefactress to the poor: her habits of industry still continued; and she employed her time, like Dorcas of old, in making clothes for those who could not make them for themselves; and in doing every little act of kindness for the sick and needy, which came within the compass of her limited income. She has now been dead some years. She bore a long and painful illness with exemplary fortitude, resignation, and patience, and is doubtless gone to reap the reward of her many virtues. She was attended most assiduously and affectionately by her exemplary daughter, and is most deeply lamented by her friends, and by all the poor in the village where she resided.

CHAPTER IX.

Unfavourable influences on the Author's mind....Importance of knowing the character of early associates....A train of family anxieties....Unpleasant traits in a brother's character....His unfavourable situation at school.... His dislike to study....His admittance at Cambridge....Mrs. Maurice returns to Catterick.... Misfortunes of her son-in-law....Remarkable memory of a child four years old.

I CANNOT look back with any great satisfaction on that period of my life, in which I was entrusted with the confidential secrets of her, whose history I have previously related. It was not that my mind was infected, like hers, with an insatiable desire of general admiration; this, had I even wished it, I knew was quite unattainable. But the current of my thoughts was driven from its proper channel; present duties, if not wholly neglected, were but languidly performed; and at the time when I should have been laying up a stock of useful knowledge for future use, my attention was continually occupied by listening to the recital of some new adventure, or of some splendid conquest, meditated or achieved. Fortunately for me, my first visit at the deanery, already described, when I was just seventeen, broke the charm. I saw that the ardent lover, if he had no other quality to recommend him, might degenerate into a very stupid companion; and that the heroine of the Novel is not exactly fitted for the exemplary wife. I returned home with the earnest desire and stedfast resolution, of attending more sedulously for the future, to my own improvement. I have dwelt the longer in the last chapter, on this frivolous character, and on the consequences to which it led, for the purpose of demonstra

ting to parents and others, the extreme importance to young persons, of the female intimacies they early form. Fortunately for me, my companion above described possessed no extraordinary powers of mind to excite my admiration, no charms of temper to engage my affection; yet, if the mischiefs resulting from the intimacy were such as I have stated, what might they not have been, if her talents had been superior, and her mind vicious rather than vain, unfeeling, capricious, and trifling?

A train of family anxieties were now coming on, and every day increasing; and among the greatest of these, was the rapidly declining health of my revered father. Travelling into Craven on horseback, about three years before, and crossing one of the most mountainous districts on the 19th of May, he was overtaken by a-tremendous storm of wind and rain, accompanied by such severe cold, that the rain froze as it descended, and his wig hung in icicles. This journey he never recovered; and the apprehensions of my mother and myself, on his account, became every day more and more painful. But this was not my only anxiety; there was something in my brother's temper which I could not unravel, and which had always prevented our having any confidential intercourse. As he grew up, his reserve increased; and although it was evident that from some cause or other, he was extremely dissatisfied, yet we could not discoverfrom what it proceeded. My father observed it also, and it gave him great uneasiness. "If he would but unbosom himself," he was wont to say, "it would make me happy."

1 have already mentioned that he was intended for the Church; a determination, on the part of my father,

1

both of prudence and of choice, for he could not so well provide for him in any other manner, and he thought that no character could be more respectable than that of a worthy clergyman. My brother's wishes, however, had long flowed in a very different channel; he had not the least pleasure in literary pursuits, and although it was said that his progress in the languages kept pace with others in his class, yet, as he never appeared to make much use of what he had learnt, it seemed to be the acquisition of words, rather than of ideas. From his infancy, he had been my mother's delight, and of course she was almost broken-hearted to see my father so dissatisfied with him, as well as by some doubts of her own, which never had perhaps, till then, arisen in her mind, respecting the dispositions which gave rise to this dissatisfaction. He did not seem indeed to have any vicious propensity, yet he had acquired habits of indolence and self indulgence, which would equally unfit him for eminence in literature, or the active life and varied pursuits of a merchant. His mind, originally not powerful, had probably been early misled by the general respect paid to my father; the rank of my mother's connexions, and more especially, by his having spent six months, when a child, with my grandmother and aunts, who admired him exceedingly for his beauty, and for the display of some little imitative powers, which they considered as a sure indication of future genius. They were continually telling him, that when he was a great boy, he should go to Russia to his uncle, who was a merchant there, and write for him and get riches. Alas! little did they imagine how very pernicious this early association of respectability and happiness with great riches, would eventually prove to his future character!