his daughter's lute was much beyond it; Sir Edward's violin was finer than either. But his conversation with Louisa---it was that of a superior order of beings ! ---science, taste, and sentiment !---it was long since Louisa had heard these sounds; amidst the ignorance of the valley, it was luxury to hear them; from Sir Edward, who was one of the most engaging figures I ever saw, they were doubly delightful. In his countenance there was always an expression animated and interesting; his sickness had overcome somewhat of the first, but greatly added to the power of the latter.

Louisa's was no less captivating---and Sir Edward had not seen it so long without emotion. During his illness, he thought this emotion but gratitude; and when it first grew warmer, he checked it, from the thought of her situation, and of the debt he owed her. But the struggle was too ineffectual to overcome; and, of consequence, increased his passion. There was but one way in which the pride of Sir Edward allowed 'of it's being gratified. He sometimes thought of this as a base and unworthy one; but he was the fool of words which he had so often despised, the slave of manners he had often condemned. He at last compromised matters with himself: he resolved, if he could, to think no more of Louisa; at any rate, to think no more of the ties of gratitude, or the re straints of virtue.

Louisa, who trusted to both, now communicated to Sir Edward an im pörtant secret. It was at the close of a piece of music, which they had been playing in the absence of her father. She took up her lute, and touched a little wild melancholy air, which she had composed to the memory of her mother. That,' said she, nobody ever heard except my father; I play it sometimes when I am alone, and in low spirits. I don't know how I came to think of it now; yet have some reason to be sad.' Sir Edward pressed to know the cause; after some hesitation she told it all. Her father had fixed on the son of a neighbour, rich in possessions, but rude in manners, for her husband. Against this match she had always protested as strongly, as a sense of duty, and the mildness of her nature, would allow' ; but Venoni was obstinately bent on the match, and she was wretched from the thoughts of it.--- To marry where one cannot love---to marry such a man, Sir Edward ---It was an opportunity beyond his power of resistance. Sir Edward pressed her hand; said it would be profanation to think of such a marriage; praised her beauty, extolled her virtues; and concluded, by swearing, that he adored her. She heard him with unsuspecting pleasure, which her blushes could ill conceal. Sir Edward improved the favourable moment; talked of the aidency of his passion, the insignificancy of ceremonies and forms, the inefficacy of legal engagements, the eternal duration of those dictated by love; and, in fine, urged her going off with him, to crown both their days with happiness. Louisa started at that proposal. She would have reproached him, but her heart was not made for it; she could only weep.

They were interrupted by the arrival of her father with his intended son-in-law. He was just such a man as Louisa had represented him, coarse, vulgar, and ignorant. But Venoni, though much above their neighbour in every thing but riches, looked upon him as poorer men often look on the wealthy, and discovered none of his imperfections. He took his daughter aside, told her he had brought her future husband, and that he intended they should be married in a week at farthest.

Next morning Louisa was indisposed, and kept her chamber. Sir Ed

ward was now perfectly recovered. He was engaged to go out with Venoni; but, before his departure, he took up his violin, and touched a few plaintive notes on it. They were heard by Louisa,

In the evening she wandered forth to indulge her sorrows alone. She had reached a sequestered spot, where some poplars formed a thicket, on the banks of a little stream that watered the valley. A nightingale was perched on one of them, and had already begun it's accustomed song. Louisa sat down on a withered stump, leaning her cheek upon her hand. After a little while, the bird was scared from it's perch, and flitted from the thicket. Louisa rose from the ground, and burst into tears! She turned and beheld Sir Edward. His countenance had much of it's former languor; and, when he took her hand, he cast on the earth a melancholy look, and seemed unable to speak his feelings. Are you not well, Sir Edward?" said Louisa, with a voice faint and broken. I am ill, indeed,' said he, but my illness is of the mind, Louisa cannot cure me of that. I am wretched; but I deserve to be so. I have broken every law of hospitality, and every obligation of grati tude. I have dared to wish for happiness, and to speak what I wished, though it wounded the heart of my dearest benefactress---but I will make a severe expiation. This moment I leave you, Louisa! I go to be wretched; but you may be happy; happy in your duty to a father; happy, it may be, in the arms of a husband, whom the possession of such a wife may teach refinement and sensibility. I go to my native country, to hurry through scenes of irksome business or tasteless amusement; that I may, if possible, procure a sort of half-oblivion of that happiness which I have left behind, a listness endurance of that life which Lonce dreamed might be made delightful with Louisa.'

Tears were the only answer she could give. Sir Edward's servants appeared, with a carriage, ready for his departure. He took from his pocket two pictures; one he had drawn of Louisa, he fastened round his neck,, and, kissing it with rapture, hid it in his bosom. The other he held out in a hesitating manner. This,' said he, if Louisa will accept of it, may sometimes put her in mind of him who once offended, who can never cease to adore her. She may look on it, perhaps, after the original is no more; when this heart shall have forgot to love, and ceased to be wretched.

Louisa was at last overcome. Her face was first pale as death; then suddenly it was crossed with a crimson blush. Oh! Sir Edward!? said she, What---what would you have me do!' He eagerly seized her hand, and led her, reluctant, to the carriage. They entered it, and driving off with furious speed, were soon out of sight of those hills which pastured the flocks of the unfortunate Venoni.

The virtue of Louisa was vanquished; but her sense of virtue was not overcome. Neither the vows of eternal fidelity of her seducer, nor the constant and respectful attention which he paid her during a hurried journey to England, could allay that anguish which she suffered at the recollection of her past, and the thoughts of her present situation. Sir Edward felt strongly the power of her beauty and of her grief. His heart was not made for that part which, it is probable, he thought it could have performed: it was still subject to remorse, to compassion, and to love. These emotions, perhaps, he might soon have overcome, had they been met by vulgar violence and reproaches; but the quiet and unupbraiding sorrows of Louisa nourished those feelings of tendere

ness

and attachment. She never mentioned her wrongs in words: sometimes a few starting tears would speak them; and, when time had given her a little more composure, her lute discoursed melancholy

music.

On their arrival in England, Sir Edward carried Louisa to his seat in the country; there she was treated with all the observance of a wife; and, had she chosen it, might have commanded more than the ordinary splendor of one. But she would not allow the indulgence of Sir Edward to blazen with equipage, and show that state which she wished always to hide, and, if possible, to forget. Her books and her music were her only pleasures; if pleasures they could be called, that served but to alleviate misery, and to blunt, for a while, the pangs of contrition.

These were deeply aggravated by the recollection of her father: a a father left in his age to feel his own misfortunes and his daughter's disgrace. Sir Edward was too generous not to think of providing for Venoni. He meant to make some atonement for the injury he had done him, by that cruel bounty which is reparation only to the base, but to the honest is insult. He had not, however, an opportunity of accomplishing his purpose. He learned that Venoni, soon after his daughter's elopement, removed from his former place of residence, and, as his neighbours reported, had died in one of the villages of Savoy. His daughter felt this with anguish the most poignant, and her affliction, for a while, refused consolation. Sir Edward's whole tenderness and attention were called forth to mitigate her grief; and, after it's first transports had subsided, he carried her to London, in hopes that objects new to her, and commonly attractive to all, night contribute to re

move it.

With a man possessed of feelings like Sir Edward's, the affliction of Lousia gave a certain respect to his attentions. He hired her a house separate from his own, and treated her with all the delicacy of the purest attachment.. But his solicitude to comfort and amuse her was not attended with success. She felt all the horrors of that guilt which she now considered, as not only the ruin of herself, but the murderer of her father.

In London Sir Edward found his sister, who had married a man of great fortune and high fashion. He had married her, because she was a fine woman, and admired by fine men; she had married him, be cause he was the wealthiest of her suitors. They lived, as is common to people in such a situation, necessitous with a princely revenue, and very wretched amidst perpetual gaiety. This scene was so foreign from the idea Sir Edward had formed of the reception his country and friends were to afford him, that he found a constant source of disgust in the society of his equals. In their conversation fantastic, not refined, their ideas were frivolous, and their knowledge shallow; and with all the pride of birth, and insolence of station, their principles were mean, and their minds ignoble. In their pretended attachments, he discovered only designs of selfishness; and their pleasures, he experienced, were as fallacious as their friendships. In the society of Louisa he found sensibility and truth; her's was the only heart that seemed interested in his welfare: she saw the return of virtue in Sir Edward, and felt the friendship which he shewed her. Sometimes, when she perceived him sorrowful, her lute would leave it's melancholy for more lively airs