they have become much softened upon a more intimate acquaintance.

Our visit here approaches to an end, and I must quit the hall and the subject together. I little thought, when I engaged in a correspondence of mere gossip with you, or even when I fell upon so marked a character in politics as Penruddock, that I should have involved myself also in an absolute romance. It has however increased my interest in respect to this interesting man, and has explained many things in his looks, demeanour, and language, which I thought it an exaggeration of sensibility to attribute wholly to his feelings on public affairs. The whole of what appeared too extraordinary to proceed from original temperament, seems now cleared up, only kindling greater sympathy the more we learn of his earlier history.

I am afraid my nil admirari has been exposed to great danger. However, it will recover after I leave this, though I have not fixed where to go. Wherever that may be, I may find Wingates, but no Penruddocks. I really could find it in my heart to accompany him abroad; and then, what letters would I not write! But it is time to close; so, with the usual assurances, farewell.

W. F.

LETTER VII.

Strickland to Fitzwalter.

Lincoln's Inn.

You must not think to escape so smoothly. Quit the hall, and the subject together? No such thing, if there be truth or feeling left in the world. If you do not tell me at least all you know more about Penruddock and poor Rosalie, (for with Oldacre, I can never believe her unworthy), you are no true friend, and your nil admirari may go to the devil. I would give the world, or what is more, a bag of briefs, to see these pictures; and would even, without a fee, cross-examine the evidence against this belied creature; for belied she must be. And yet Penruddock seems to be too sternly just, if not too feelingly interested, to decide lightly, and persist in it for so many years. But you are cruel in leaving me without power to form an opinion. I am in an absolute fever to know the rest. Do you think lawyers are not flesh and blood, as well as idle

loungers, though they may have something else to do than to run up and down the world in quest of adventures? Write to me, on your life; for that have more to write is clear.

you

Yours, therefore, as you behave,

CHAS. STRICKLAND.

LETTER VIII.

Fitzwalter to Strickland.

Penruddock Hall.

YOUR curiosity is but natural, and I meant not to leave you in the lurch; but, on the eve of departure from this, would have finished at Oldacre, or elsewhere. What, however, I told you is true; the rest of our friend's history is too unhappy to afford pleasure in reciting it. And yet jilting is a catastrophe neither uncommon nor fatal. It is only where it is so unexpected, and the jilt so amiable, that so ordinary a matter can be even interesting; for how little new, though two hundred years ago, was the discovery

"Frailty, thy name is woman!"

Yet, I own I am at fault. Religious fears do much with a weak girl; but Rosalie was not weak. Separation, too, may efface even a strong impression. But her separation, ere her change, was too short for the effect.

Again, vanity perhaps could not withstand the asserted constancy of the hitherto most inconstant of lovers; and the condé had returned, and was, or pretended to be, despairing at her feet.

Lastly, friends, relations, religious authority, national prejudices, and national jealousy (particularly of benefits from one who was both a foreigner and a heretic)—all these might, in time and in absence, warp a mind of sixteen from its centre. But not only there had been no time, but to look at Rosalie (to use her lover's emphatic expression) was to look at truth. Her smile could not deceive, even though her tongue did. True, Don Alvaro was at her feet; he was young, graceful, and, when not proud, fascinatingly insinuating; and his pride was now all subdued for Rosalie's sweet sake. This could not fail to tell something, to a heart so inexperienced. But Penruddock measured that heart by his own. He had seen it, as he thought, proved, and he had no fear of any one, least of all of the condé.

Alas! who can be confident? Alvaro knew all the advantages of his rival's absence and his own presence ; he had admirable tact, and was skilled in using it. He had seen that, to his wealth, his titles, his court favour, and even his success in love, his mistress, youthful as she was, was impenetrable. He therefore changed his ground, and, it must be owned, adroitly. He had made many