Edwin had reposed an unbounded confidence in De Clavering, De Willows, and Hugh Camelford, in regard to his sister, and without reserve informed them of his own engagements with Madeline, who had received the positive commands of her father to enter on the year of her noviciate. His situation was now become desperate; the crisis had arrived which admitted of no alternative. He must either give up the connexion, or make some effort to secure the prize he had taken such unwearied pains to obtain. His friends promised secresy and assistance in whatever way he should find it convenient to put their sincerity to the test. He had likewise separately introduced them into the apartment of the prisoner, and if, before they saw him, they found themselves disposed to pity and respect him, they were now actuated by the personal regard they could not help feeling in his behalf, which his manners and understanding failed not to inspire in such liberal minds. Hugh Camelford declared himself ready to tie in his defence, and to encounter a host of tevils to procure his freedom. Preparations were now began, and the day fixed for the wedding. The marriage ceremony was to be performed in the chapel of the nunnery by father Anselm, and, as Roseline made no effort to stop or postpone the proceedings, none but the parties most intimately concerned had an idea that she felt any reluctance to become a bride. Edeliza and Bertha were half wild with joy: they were to be met at the altar by the abbess, Madeline, and Agnes Clifford; the two latter intended to officiate as bride-maids with the Miss de Morneys.--To describe the various feelings of the parties would fill a volume. Suffice it then to say, that Lady de Morney, far from engaging in the necessary arrangements with pleasure and alacrity, never looked at the dejected countenance of her daughter without feeling a severe reproof from the silent monitor which she, like every other mortal, carried in her bosom. Sir Philip exulted in having managed matter so cleverly as to carry his point (a point to which the necessity of his circumstances reduced him) with less difficulty than he expected, and the Baron, resting satisfied that no woman in her senses could dislike him, or be insensible to the advantages that an union with a man of his rank and character would procure her, determined no longer to encourage either doubts or fears as to her shyness and reluctant compliance. It might, as her father had asserted, proceed from her inexperience, her love for her parents, and her ignorance of the world. In this delusion we must for the present leave him, in order to return to those for whose happiness we confess ourselves more interested.