He now set out for London, where his father had intended he should be brought up to the law. He was accordingly entered at Lincolns Inn, and began the usual course of studies. He had not been long in his new situation, when one morning, sitting ruminating on his future prospects, a gentle knock was heard at the door; he opened it himself, and a female fainted in his arms. Instantly recognizing Jenny Collings, he carried her into his apartment, and at length brought her to herself. Having recovered her recollection, she gently reproached him for his omission, in having suffered a whole month to pass since he left Cambridge, without writing to her. He declared he had written to her twice, and was much surprised he had received no answer. “Where did you address to me?”--“At Doncaster, to be sure: I wrote to you, my dear Jenny, that I hoped I should in a few weeks have affairs properly arranged for receiving you here.”--“Good God,” said she, “I dare say our letters have been opened, and every thing discovered, which I hoped to conceal. I wrote to you last from Sheffield, having, as I before mentioned, bade adieu to Doncaster.” Hamilton having declared he never had received the intelligence; he now inquired tenderly into her adventures and situation. She acknowledged with a faint blush and downcast eyes, that in the subject of his anxious interrogatories, which she had never answered, his apprehensions had been but too well founded. Conscious of her condition, she had with a broken heart communicated it to her widowed mother, whose chief hope she had been. Mrs. Collings, borne down by former afflictions, had not once reproached her for the grievous addition which her conduct had made; and by her forbearance had cut her to the heart. “I have,” said Jenny, “two younger sisters, to whom she intended me as an example, and hoped I would be a support. I know she must look on me as having blasted all her expectations. Two days ago she came into the room where we were, and looking at us alternately, burst out into a fit of crying, which tore my very soul. I thought her tears and sobs a reproach to me. I could not bear them. I left the room, went to my own, and resolved to seek my fortune in the capital. I had six guineas hoarded up, from different presents of relations, and also of ladies who were pleased with my attention to their orders. I left the half inclosed in a farewell letter to my mother, and with the rest sallied out unobserved to the office of a stage coach, that passed about that time, found a seat, and this morning arrived in town.--Knowing from yourself that you were to be in Lincolns Inn, I hurried hither.”