"Sir Henry, as I was afterwards informed, swayed by the report which was circulated of my attentions to his lady, insisted on her accompanying him to London; and as I soon after left England, I neither saw nor heard any thing of her till about a year and a half since; when, being in London, I one morning went to breakfast with Sir John Dursley, and was there surprised by the appearance of Lady Corbet. Her dress instantly informed me she was a widow; yet, as knowing her abhorrence of Sir Henry, I was perplexed to account for the sorrow depicted in her countenance. "The mystery was soon explained. For some time after my departure, Sir Henry's conduct and behaviour continued invariably the same, when her happiness received an additional shock, by the total alienation of his affections from his son, who, as his years and sensibility increased, severely felt the estrangement, which produced an habitual melancholy. His amusements were disregarded; company became disagreeable; and the only pleasure or recreation he seemed to experience, or would take, was in wandering through the grounds and plantations; where, when the servants his anxious mother sent in search of him, could not trace his haunts, he used even to pass the night. "At last Sir Henry fell a victim to a decline: he still retained his dislike to his son; but, to make his lady amends, as he termed it, for the unhappiness he had occasioned her, he left her every part of his fortune, without restriction, exclusive of the family estate (about eight thousand a year) which the present Sir Henry comes to the possession of, on attaining his one-and-twentieth year. "The attention of Sir Henry to Lady Corbet, on the death of his father, was the richest balm to her heart, and she looked forward to that happiness of which she had so many years regretted the deprivation: but the flattering illusion soon fled! Her son, on a sudden, became thoughtful, reserved, and mysterious: his answers, when addressed, were incoherent, his dress disordered, and his whole appearance indicative of internal wretchedness. He avoided his mother and passed the greatest part of his time in the apartment where his father died, and where, at last, he totally secluded himself. Lady Corbet was grieved and alarmed at this change, which the domestics openly imputed to a mental derangement; and some papers they found, nearly induced Lady Corbet to concur in their opinion. They contained unconnected sentences, which showed a mind ill at ease, if not bereft of reason.