"Now let me beseech you, and believe me to speak from the most disinterested feelings, that when you meet Lady Adeline, you will not betray yourself into a too hasty arrangement for your union. See her--see her, by all means. Judge for yourself; use your own eyes, hear with your own ears, and be the arbiter of your own cause, but do nothing rashly. Time is necessary for all decisions in momentous questions; and what can be more momentous, and in what is there more at stake, than in an union for life? Can too much deliberation be given to the subject? Alas! I know, from my own fatal experience, what misery must ensue where no tastes, no principles, no objects exist in common between those united. I owe to this cause a great portion of my present unhappiness; for the misery I endured, and the constant efforts I made to bear up against the tenfold wretchedness of my marriage with Lord Hamlet Vernon, impaired my intellectual powers, and prevented my turning the energies of my mind to any useful or profitable purpose. Hence I have become what I am, dependant on the resources of the hour, to enable me to pass through life with any thing like composure." Lord Albert had listened with feelings which it would be impossible to describe to all that had fallen from Lady Hamlet Vernon; and in the emotion, which her communication and her entreaties produced, he could find no words for utterance, no answer to her appeals. He was like one dumb, and deprived of sense; and he stood for some moments rooted to the spot when the voice of his counsellor had ceased. "See her! yes, I will see my Adeline," he at length said in a deep agonized tone, as if communing with himself. "Yes, I will see her." "Lord Albert, I entreat you, I implore you," cried Lady Hamlet Vernon, with an emotion that made her words quiver on her lips, "I beseech you forgive me, if"--the window of the library was at this moment thrown hastily up; and Lord Albert D'Esterre heard his name called by Lord Ellersby, who held in his hand a letter. "D'Esterre," said he, "here are your letters." Lord Albert hastened forward mechanically to receive them, and one he gazed upon more intently than the rest, as he looked them over--it was from Adeline. Who is there who has not recognised, even in its peculiar folding, the letter of a beloved object? and whose heart has not throbbed with delight ere even the seal were broken? Such was the emotion of Lord Albert, awoke up from the paralyzing influence of Lady Hamlet Vernon's communication to new life by the letter he now pressed to his bosom; and regardless of what had passed, he hastened to his room, and read as follows:-- /# "DEAREST:--My mother has been gradually growing worse and worse these two months, and I have persuaded her to go to town for a consultation of her physicians.