mont, and of which (while he deterinined as far as he could to obey them) he could not help feeling the injuftice.

No pleasure now remained for Delmont in places where he had once tasted fo much unadulterated delight. If he rode out, he paffed near, or faw from diftant heights, the trees that furrounded the houfe, or were grouped in the park of his uncle, and he imagined that fe cond parent looking with fome regret for the figures that once peopled the scene sd) has enfl has gudto

Lord, d Caftledanes, however, came very feldom to Belton Tower; when he did, it was alone, and only for a few days, to fettle fuch bufinefs as might occafionally require his attention. The old fervants, for hardly one of them had been removed, imagined, they faw their Lord, when he thus vifited the place of his former (almost conftant) refidence, lefs cheerful than he used to be when the family of his brother was around him; but by the fervants who accompanied him from Lon

don they heard of the gaiety of his town-house, the fplendor of the new equipages, and the taste of "my Lady." No body was fo richly and finely dreffed at court as "my Lady;" and the com pliments fhe had received were repeated, as the footmen and grooms heard them from the maids, who heard them from Mrs. Gingham, who probably heard them fromt my Lady's" fifter, if not from "my Lady" herself; and very magnificent accounts were given of fundry fayings, wife and witty, of perfons of the moft elevated rank, who had been fupping at " my Lady's." My Lord, feemed already funk into a fecondary figure; and Delmont, as he liftened pen+ fively, and not without an uneafy fenfa tion, to the narratives thus given by his own fervants, who had long lived with him, and whom he had indulged in habits of talking to him, could not refrain from afking himself, whether the friend, the uncle he loved fo much, was happy in this new mode of life? and when

his

his own taste and turn of mind compel led him to answer in the negative, or at leaft with doubt and hesitation, he found himself affected by thefe doubts, and drove them from him as ufelefs and injurious to his own peace: it was more to the purpofe to confider, fince he was almoft entirely left to himself, how he fhould decide as to the purfuit or profeffion that was to be chofen for the reft of his life.!

His father, wholly engaged by the fudden and mortifying change which had happened in his own views, and in those of his eldeft fon, feemed to have had no time or consideration left for the regula tion of thofe of the younger.

Though George Delmont had gone to Oxford after his recovery, it was because he was of an age to go thither, rather than return to Eton, that he was fent; and becaufe he already had learned all that a great fchool teaches as to books, and had miraculoufly efcaped, from the fingularity of his temper, all thofe early tendencies to vice which fuch a school is by fome fuppofed

to encourage; it was partly too to remove himself from a fcene where every object around him, every face he faw, reminded him of his irretrievable lofs, that he ear gerly embraced his uncle's offer of fending him to the university. The time he had paffed there he by no means repented; yet now his circumftances were fa changed, that he faw not how he was to fupport the expence; nor, if he could, how it would be worth while fo to bestow it, unless he determined to devote himself to one of the learned profeffions.

From law, where the moft honest must in a great degree thrive on the perplexities, quarrels, and diftreffes of others, he was utterly averfe. Medicine, that noble profeffion, which is never enough respected, but which, when attentively studied and confcientiously followed, is the most beneficial of any to the human race, required a course of application and habits of life for which he knew himself to be altogether unfit. The church alone remained, and to provide for him

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in it had probably been the intention of Lord Caftledanes; but of this Delmont thought with reluctance. No mano could more highly venerate the character of a good prieft"a man dedicated in heart and fpirit to the edification and inftruction of the worldbut he felt himself too ignorant on all theological fubjects, to believe he should ever be in that line what he felt he ought to be, if ever he undertook it; and he doubted whether the enquiries that would perhaps fatisfy himself, might qualify him to convey, in fincerity of heart, fuch doctrine to thofe who might be entrusted to him, as the oaths he should take would make a part of his duty.That it was done without reflection every day he knew-but though many who did it were, for aught he knew, very good fort of people, he felt it impoffible for him to follow their steps.

The vague plans that had arifen and difappeared in his family, while he was yet a boy, for his future deftination in