him that genuine love, if not the basis on which it was founded, had been the certain consequence. With a strict scrutiny into his heart he sought this knowledge, but arrived at it with a regret that amounted to despair. To shield him from despondency, he formed in his mind a thousand visions, displaying the joys of his union with Lady Matilda; but her father’s implacability confounded them all. Lord Elmwood was a man who made few resolutions—but those were the effect of deliberation; and as he was not the least capricious or inconstant in his temper, they were resolutions which no probable event could shake. Love, that produces wonders, that seduces and subdues the most determined and rigid spirits, had in two instances overcome the inflexibility of Lord Elmwood; he married Lady Elmwood contrary to his determination, because he loved; and for the sake of this beloved object, he had, contrary to his resolution, taken under his immediate care young Rushbrook; but the magic which once enchanted away this spirit of immutability was no more—Lady Elmwood was no more, and the charm was broken. As Miss Woodley was deprived of the opportunity of desiring Rushbrook not to write, when he asked her the permission, he passed one whole morning, in the gratification of forming and writing a letter to her, which he thought might possibly be shewn to Matilda. As he dared not touch upon any of those circumstances in which he was the most interested, this, joined to the respect he wished to pay the lady to whom he wrote, limited his letter to about twenty lines; yet the studious manner with which these lines were dictated, the hope that they might, and the fear that they might not, be seen and regarded by Lady Matilda, rendered the task an anxiety so pleasing, that he could have wished it might have lasted for a year; and in this tendency to magnify trifles, was discoverable, the never-failing symptom of ardent love. A reply to this formal address, was a reward he wished for with impatience, but he wished in vain; and in the midst of his chagrin at the disappointment, a sorrow, little thought of, occurred, and gave him a perturbation of mind he had never before experienced. Lord Elmwood proposed a wife to him; and in a way so assured of his acquiescence, that if Rushbrook’s life had depended upon his daring to dispute his benefactor’s will, he would not have had the courage to have done so. There was, however, in his reply, and his embarrassment, something which his uncle distinguished from a free concurrence; and looking stedfastly at him, he said, in that stern manner which he now almost invariably adopted, “You have no engagements, I suppose! Have made no previous promises!” “None on earth, my Lord,” replied Rushbrook candidly. “Nor have you disposed of your heart?”