herfelf in an agreeable refidence. Her ladyship repaid the favour, by promifing to restore all the valuable embellishments which the had furreptitiously conveyed to Kinloch caftle, as soon as Monteith was reinftated in its priftine fplendor.

CHAP. XVII.

I rue the riches of my former fate;
Sweet comfort's blafted clusters I lament:
I tremble at the bleffings once fo dear.

YOUNG.

THE day preceding that fixed for her departure from London, lady Monteith was painfully furprized by the prefence of an unexpected vifitor. This was no other than Henry Powerfcourt, who having at last determined to vifit Italy, imposed upon himself the fevere task of bidding farewell to that treasure, the lofs of which had rendered his native country a defert fcene, barren of every joy and every hope. Having thus divulged a fecret, at which before I only hinted, it ftill remains neceffary to develope the motives that induced this extraordinary lover to refuse the bleffing which

which the amiable fingularities of fir William Powerscourt had placed within his reach.

From his earliest youth, his fufceptible mind had felt the full power of his coufin's charms; but while his admiration rendered her raillery more exqui-. fitely painful, it prompted the ardent yet unacknowledged wish to acquire every laudable quality which could recommend him to the favour of the lovelieft of her fex. His inexperienced heart knew not the nature of that paffion to which it was a victim; if it had, the native rectitude of his mind would have ftarted with inbred horror at a difcovery that feemed to ftamp every ungenerous, mean, and ungrateful vice upon the unprincipled villain, who dared to lift his felfish eyes to the angelic daughter of his honoured benefactor. So far, therefore, from taking any indirect

6

direct means to obtain the object of his wishes, those wishes were unperceived even by himself, and he fancied that he cherished no other sentiments than fuch as could be justified by the ties of friendfhip and affinity. The general admiration which Geraldine attracted feemed to confirm this idea; and though the inquietude which he ever felt at hearing of her having made any particular conquest might have removed the delufion, he ftill foothed himself with the perfuafion that his anxiety arofe only from a friendly folicitude for her welfare, and he forbore to probe the wound till it became too deep to admit of cure.

The terms of the letter in which fir William had fummoned him to Powerf court excited a wild tumult of hopes and fears, and firft convinced him that the interest he took in his fair coufin's happiness was not fo entirely abftracted from

VOL. I.

from felfish confiderations as he had fuppofed. A faithful old domeftic, who was the bearer of this epistle, could not forbear telling the enraptured youth, that the general report of the family pointed him out as the heir and fon-inlaw of their respected master. A thoufand expreffions of fir William's were now recollected in an inftant, and Henry's ardent mind explained their equivocal nature as decidedly fignificant of the generous plan which had been long formed in his favour. His reception elevated these hopes into certainties; for, though fir William forbore any particular explanation, the uncommon kindness of his manner, and fome injunctions to Henry to do fuch and fuch things after he was gone, banished every remaining doubt of his intentions.

Nor did Mifs Powerfcourt's unusual dejection alarm her lover with the appre

henfion