rank in one of the numerous regiments then raising, and was soon after sent out to the Continent, to maintain the cause of kings, according to the Pitt system, against the French republicans. His fair bride, whose destiny, both by gratitude and love, was bound up in his, and to whom he now became by their late union her lawful, as he had been before her generous protector, forgetting the delicacy in which she was brought up, and the weakness of her sex, accompanied him abroad, and attended him in all his campaigns. She endured without murmur privations of every kind, and sustained with firmness the fatigue of long marches, as her attendant Agatha informed me; she more than shared, by the tenderness of her anxiety, the dangers to which her husband was exposed; and while he suffered from repeated wounds, soothed his pain by tender solicitude and unwearied attention: and when he fell in battle, unable to survive his loss, she pined in solitary widow, hood,

hood, and only lingered out life to gain Ireland, where she hastened with a view of confiding her infant son to the protection of your mother.

"During the time colonel Plunket and his lady, after escaping the persecutions in France, passed in Dublin, your mother, Geraldine, purposely absented herself with a friend at the Lake of Killarney, to evade every chance of meeting with her cousin, in whose presence she might betray her concealed but still ardent affection. Years rolled on, and to no eye but mine was perceptible the disappointment which internally preyed on her spirits, and rendered her averse to every proposed matrimonial engagement: to me, however, was open every secret folding of her guileless heart, and with a pitying eye I could penetrate (though her tongue was silent as to the cause) the chagrin with which it was devoured."

"My dear unhappy mother," sighed Geraldine, "how pitiable thy fate in be

coming thus early a prey to a disappoint

ed passion!"

"Hers, my dear Geraldine," replied Fanny, interpreting the young lady's sigh, "was no evanescent passion, inspired by the personal appearance and pleasing manners of a handsome young fellow, which absence might soon remove, and another handsome fellow replace. No, it was a tenderness founded on long intimacy, nurtured by esteem of virtue, and. approved by reason, but carefully concealed by virgin modesty on her side; on the other, if there existed, as I think there did, a reciprocal flame, it was regarded by Plunket as too daring a presumption to indulge."

"What a pity," exclaimed Geraldine, some mutual friend did not in time explain their sentiments to each other!"

"Colonel Plunket, my dear child, was of such a high and noble spirit, that I really question whether he would have been willing to accept independence from

even

even the woman he adored. He preferred the more daring part of carving out a fortune for himself by his sword, than contracting obligation to mortal."

"He refined too much on the virtue of an independent spirit," said Geraldine; "for where love is mutual, it matters not on which side may be the fortune."

"Not much," replied Fanny, "provided there is not on the other any sinister object; but as this may frequently be the case, and that it is at all times difficult to ascertain it is not, those marriages must certainly be the happiest which are formed in perfect equality of rank and fortune.

"Six or seven years after the marriage of colonel Plunket, my lady was induced, at the repeated solicitations of her friends, to give her hand to sir Richard Courteney, for whom, though he possessed not the first glowing affections of her youthful heart, she entertained a tender friendship. Though his talents scarce attained mediocrity, and that hers were versatile and transcendent,

transcendent, yet the goodness of his heart insensibly won her esteem, and his persevering assiduities drew her affection; she espoused him without regret, and had every prospect of enjoying happiness in the union. The fall in battle of her noble cousin was the first interruption to this felicity; it gave a shock to her tender heart, which called forth every exertion of reason to conceal under a forced serenity; but when, a few months after, the little Charles, the sole surviving remnant of the once-loved Plunket, was presented to her, how did his presence, and the strong likeness which he bore to his noble father, awaken every dormant feeling in her tender bosom! The love she once felt for the parent was all transferred to the orphan child; and you, my Geraldine, were not dearer to her maternal heart than your amiable cousin. Alas! you were too young at her early death to be sensible of, or to prize as you ought, her affection." "But now, dear Fanny," interrupted Geraldine,

VOL. I.

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