reasoned Sedley--and thus did this modern Pylades acquit himself of the charge of any breach of friendship, as he thus deliberately prepared to rival his own Orestes. Far different, and much less successful, were the means adopted by Webberly for carrying his designs into execution. He had become painfully convinced, that the paths of fashionable extravagance were not to be trodden with impunity; and as his credit decreased with his banker his attentions to Miss Seymour were redoubled. Whenever she appeared in public, as at the theatres, or in the Park, he was her constant attendant; "and, like the shadow, proved the substance true," as far at least as related to her fortune. But notwithstanding his assiduity, he found it almost impossible to procure access to those more distinguished parties Lady Eltondale and Sedley frequented; and, being as much enlightened by his self-interest as the Viscountess was deceived by hers, he determined to keep a watchful eye over his _ci-devant_ friend, and heartily repented having ever introduced him at Deane Hall. While these two competitors were thus, in different ways, striving for the golden prize, Selina was not less an object of regard to Lord Osselstone.--He, as might naturally be expected, was usually to be met in the same circle in which Lady Eltondale moved: but it was more difficult to account for the perceptible attention he constantly paid to Selina. At first he seemed more than usually pleased with the artlessness and vivacity of her manner; and the recollection of the kindness of his behaviour to her at the moment of her distress, at Lady Eltondale's first party, made her show a sort of confidence in her manners and address towards him, that, had she been more experienced in the ways of the world, his very superiority might perhaps have prevented. But with Lord Osselstone the idea of Mordaunt was inseparably connected; and as the recollection of the one became painful, the pleasure she had derived from the society of the other decreased. She became gradually suspicious of his character, as a greater familiarity with it convinced her it was not easily to be understood; and she was sometimes tempted to wish, either that she was less an object of his Lordship's observation, or that the veil could be entirely withdrawn, which seemed so constantly to shroud all his feelings from her view.