offer of his hand. But that which would, a few years before, have constituted Amelia's felicity, was insufficient to arrest the progress of ill health, begun by mental suffering, and now accelerated by remorse, and a thousand other distressing sensations. To see Death, whom she had so often invoked, approaching, with rapid strides, at the moment that, could she have done so, she would have given treasures for every hour of life prolonged, was destined to be the punishment of Amelia, for the duties she had neglected, and the blessings she had spurned. The near prospect of this awful change shewed her own behaviour to Mrs. Lascelles, when, as Miss Somerville, she was an inmate under her roof, in a very different point of view from that in which self-love had, till now, represented it. She became sensible of the baseness of her conduct towards the generous, uncomplaining Julia, and wrote, earnestly imploring her forgiveness, and correspondence

M 3

correspondence during the remaining period she had to live.

Mrs. Lascelles scarcely waited for this overture to treat her unhappy sister-in-law with every kindness and attention. Ame-lia had also the satisfaction of receiving, to the last, proofs of the unchangeable affection of the man who was the object of her first and virgin love. The native tenderness and generosity of her disposition, which passion had warped, and the love of the world choked and stifled, seemed to struggle to revive, as the allurements of that world gradually melted before the icy touch of death; and she displayed qualities, at the last, which shewed she had been meant for a different being, if ill-directed feelings, and an injudicious education, had not marred the lovely promise Nature's bounty gave.

More fortunate, apparently, than her sister, lady Claremont, after a due proportion of time given to scruples and indig

nation,

nation, married lord Rothbury; but the indissoluble knot was scarcely tied before she bitterly reproached herself for the breach of her fantastic vow, and, with characteristic inconsistency, neglected every duty her new station called upon her to perform, to bewail the infringement of that imaginary one which it was no longer in her power to fulfil. Some say that she is as outrageously jealous of her present lord as her late lord was of her; and that the earl is so annoyed with her flights, that he has serious thoughts of putting her under private restraint. But this is a complete fabrication; the wildest of her ladyship's caprices do not come within the letter of insanity, and the earl and countess live together as happily as many people.

It is but justice to add, that her ladyship's conscience was soon relieved from the apprehended guilt of murder, the page, Orlando, having received no other permanent injury from his wetting than

the

the complete demolition of a superb Spanish dress. The immersion has, on the other hand, been reckoned advantageous to his conversation, which has, since that period, been more sparingly interlarded with tales of the household than heretofore.

Miss Ravenshawe continues to preside over the little community of Rothbury, which has since been enlivened by the return of the Birkits to their native place. Bear Hall no longer deserves the name, but is the seat of mirth, hospitality, and good-humour.

The venerable lady Penmawr herself has had the satisfaction of outliving, a few years, a tyrant, to whom even her advanced age was not sacred. She sees her great-grandchildren around her, and with those blessings must be content, as, being rather too far advanced in life to lead fashions, she can hardly hope to witness the revival of the forest gown.

Mrs. Tornado, with whom her sister,

Eliza Birkit, keeps up very little correspondence, has lately been made happier than she deserves, by the marriage of the two Misses Tornado, who were a perpetual source of anxiety to her. The one has been married to a rich Jew merchant; the other to a Christian peer.

Julia continues every day to increase the happiness of Lascelles, and, by her tender and judicious care of the little hapless Celestina, promises, in spite of the errors of her unhappy mother, to render her every thing the fondest parent can desire.

Having nothing now to attach them to Rothbury, and many disagreeable remembrances connected with it, the happiness of this deserving pair was rendered complete, by the removal of Lascelles to a much more valuable living, in the most beautiful part of Berkshire. There, in the practice of the duties of religion and benevolence, in literature, and the embellishment of their small but paradisiacal abode, and the exercise of the thousand generous and de

lightful