and figure, a very pretty young woman; but the moment she opened her mouth to speak, the high polished, and still higher fed servants of colonel Ardenbrooke, found the charm destroyed: as to Mrs. Harrison, she declared she could not abide the country gawky; especially as she would often catch the butler leering at her fresh and youthful countenance: it was really too bad, she would say to herself, such a sandy-haired, white, faded looking thing! for Anne had beautiful light brown hair, a few shades only above flaxen, and her complexion was very fair.

But what also very much mortified Mrs. Harrison was, at finding that Anne was so much her superior in all the smart and handy occupations of a lady's maid, such as in millinery, dress-making, &c. &c.; so much so, that even her stylish lady admired her taste, and often requested of her to place her feathers in her hat in the same way that she had disposed

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disposed those of Miss Dorrington; and worse than all, her ladyship had said"I wish, my pretty little Anne, you would give a little of your taste to my old Harrison, and teach her to assort those flowers better, and make those short ostrich plumes play over that turban in that elegant way in which you so completely excel."

CHAP

CHAPTER VII.

A few Particulars of the Hartington Family.

WHEN Colonel Ardenbrooke eloped with the beautiful daughter of the late earl of Belmont, an elegant mansion, called Fairlawn Villa, was inhabited by a near relative of the colonel, a general retired from the service, who had married a lady of immense fortune, and whose own, by hereditary right, was more than equal. His brother, an archdeacon, constantly resided with him, after the reverend gentleman had lost, his wife: he also was very rich, and be ing childless, general Hartington, a calculating man, looked forward to the additional future fortunes of his children, F 5 through

through this brother. The general, however, when colonel Ardenbrooke and lady Emily took their matrimonial northern tour, was then pretty well stricken in years. His eldest son, with his wife, were gone on a pleasurable excursion through France and Italy; and the youngest had finished his education at home, and was abroad with a travelling tutor.

The eldest Mr. Hartington, the present inheritor of his father and mother's great riches, had married an amiable English lady, of good fortune and high connexions, and she had been the wife of this. Mr. Hartington about three or four years before the marriages of ladyEmily and lady Laura took place. Mr. Hartington, at the time we now introduce this family to the notice of our readers, was eight-and-forty years of age, and was deputed by Dorrington, with his older friend colonel Ardenbrooke, to

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be the guardian of his only daughter Clarissa.

Mr. Hartington was the father of three handsome daughters, of whom we shall have occasion to speak more hereafter his amiable wife, and her coun terpart Julia, her youngest daughter, would gladly have devoted every leisure hour to the venerable archdeacon, who resided entirely at his nephew's country seat; but Mr. Hartington, a true man of the world, loved the town and all its gaieties, speculated on the conquests his daughters must achieve there, built much on the talents of the eldest, the beauty of the second, but thought little of the most lovely of them all, the interesting Julia.

When he did remain at Fairlawn Villa, it was for a time a scene of continual pleasure; musical parties and theatrical amusements followed each other in gay succession; but finding these gave offence to the good archdeacon, who felt