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abilities of Mr. Evans feemed to point him out as an eligible fucceffor; but it appeared to be an infuperable difficulty to gain lady Powerfcourt's approbation of such a plan. Luckily, however, the lady was not quite inexorable. The hu mane concern which Mrs. Evans expressed for her illness had been placed in the strongest point of view, and if it had not wrought upon her gratitude, it at least, by recalling to her memory thẹ obliging companion and the attentive friend of her younger years, perfuaded lady Powerscourt to acknowledge, that in her present fituation fuch a neighbour would be a defirable acquifition. Her apprehenfion of being difgraced by the recognition of her coufin was relieved by the fortunate communications of fome morning visitors, who, having heard that fir William had publicly announced his intention of providing for Mr. Evans,

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flew to inform my lady that he was the "charmingest and most delightfuleft preacher in the world; that Mrs. Evans too, though an excellent manager, was an amiable agreeable creature, quite the gentlewoman both in manner and appearance."

Sir William had purposed ushering in his intended difpofal of the living of Powerfcourt, by obfervations on the lofs they fhould fuftain by Mr. Jones's removal, and how highly defirable it was to have an agreeable neighbour at the rectory. He intended next to allude to Mr. Evans's reputed skill at back-gammon, and to inquire if his wife was not a very chatty conversable woman; but my lady stopped his exordium in the midft by one of those sweet furprifals in which the reader will perceive the abounded, and begged him as a favour to compliment her coufins

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with the prefentation,-a request which was granted with equal aftonishment and joy.

Those who have been accustomed to dread the cenfures of their own hearts, and to fuppofe that an unwarrantable indulgence of the irritable paffions must produce felf-condemnation, will proba bly wonder that lady Powerscourt should wish for the fociety of a perfon whose prefence muft adminifter perpetual reproach to her confcious mind; but her moral creed was formed upon different principles. She thought it as impoffible for a person of fortune to behave ill to an inferior, as for a beauty to be capricious, or a wit fatirical. Each of thefe characters had a privilege to be rude, tyrannical, and cenforious; and as their faults required no atonement, every body was bound, upon the smallest change of behaviour on their parts, to

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lose the remembrance of past storms in ravishing admiration of the prefent gentle breeze. Though endued herself with that trembling fenfibility which bleeds at every pore, fhe doubted the existence of feeling in the fubordinate orders of mankind; and though fhe had left her friend finking in all the horrors of want without stretching forth her hand to fupport her, fhe would have thought that friend the most ungrateful being in the world, if she had refused to dedicate her time to the task of endeavouring to alleviate her real or fancied forrows.

Mrs. Evans certainly could feel, but she could also forgive. In her behaviour to lady Powerfcourt fhe appeared to remember nothing but that he was the friend of her early youth, and the wife of her revered benefactor. "It is my

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duty," the used to lay to her hufband, when he kindly reproved her for devoting

devoting fo much time to the painful and unwholefome confinement of a fick chamber: "Confider," fhe continued, "how much we owe to fir William's "bounty, and how much it befits us to "try to diminish thofe troubles with "which Providence thinks fit to prove "the worthieft of human hearts." In this opinion Mr. Evans acquiefced, and only cautioned her not to injure her invaluable health.

Ten years fucceffively rolled away without producing any remarkable change at Powerfcourt. The Evans's continued to devote their chief attention to the duties which gratitude, fympathy, and pity required. Soothed by their fociety, enraptured by the attractive sweetness of his enchanting daughter, and fuftained by the exalting consciousness of a life of usefulness and rectitude, fir William endured the hourly

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