imprisonment, or declining years, made her prouder of such a parent than she would have been of one seated on the right hand of power. And had she cherished and avowed an affection for the son of a cruel enemy to her honoured father!--What a want of filial piety, what a shameful inattention to his wrongs would it be, knowingly to confirm such an unnatural inclination! Whatever pain it cost her, she determined to release her heart from the fetters which gratitude and pity had combined to form. The resolution was extremely noble, but to execute it was superlatively difficult. Lord Sedley was daily before her eyes in the interesting characters of suffering magnanimity or ardent attachment. When his unclosed wounds throbbed with extreme anguish, could she refuse to minister to his relief? When returning ease allowed him to direct the grateful acknowledgments of a devoted heart, to the protecting angel who had rescued him from death, could she deny the confessed affection surprise had drawn from her, and resolve to hate or even forget him on account of a supposed hereditary feud? The struggle of her soul was apparent to Sedley, who, ignorant of his father's crimes, attributed her affected reserve to the alarm she felt lest the claims of his exalted station should prove incompatible with love. To alleviate this fear he was more explicit in his declarations, and energetic in his vows of devoting to her the life she had preserved. She attempted to look cold and determined, while she answered that she feared insuperable objections would prevent their union. In the weak state to which Lord Sedley was reduced, the least agitation of mind was dangerous; after one of these conversations he fainted, and was thought expiring, but the first object he saw on his recovery was Isabel, in such an agony of grief as convinced him that indifference had no share in the alteration of her behaviour.