lady Emily's bosom was bursting with rage and mortified vanity, she thought proper to dissemble; and hearing the steps of the guilty pair advancing towards the door, and her husband saying -"God bless you, my love!" and the lady replying-" Farewell, my dear George!" she glided into her place of concealment, from whence she could see and not be seen; and she beheld a lovely female form, with sylph-like air, accompany the colonel, who obsequiously: handed her down stairs. A veil of fine but of impenetrable texture prevented lady Emily from catching any part of the stranger's face.

The first impulse that arose in her mind, after this event, was to write an: account to her darling cousin of the atrocious incident, as she called it, and to ask her advice how she would counsel: her to act. Her prudent cousin, fearful of the unguarded violence of her impetuous temper, advised her to feign.ig

norance,

norance, and to endeavour really to feel as much indifference as she possibly could, for this most unwarrantable proof of infidelity.

Poor Laura, at that time not quite nineteen, was but a poor adviser; and lady Emily followed her cousin's course so implicitly, that, from feigning indifference, she soon began to feel it. Years of dissipation, and the most unlimited extravagance, banished the recollection of the blue room adventure; it was inhabited successively by all the expensive visitors in high life, who came to pass a few days with the stylish pair. The colonel's fortune wasted to a mere song, his debts accumulated, and his estates were loaded with mortgages the most heavy; lady Emily, with her separate fortune of seven thousand pounds a-year, was always in arrears; but still they kept up a great establishment, had carriages. of the newest fashion, and most elegant

kind,

kind, with every out-fit bespeaking high birth and opulence,

So had rolled on about eleven years, after the first adventure of the blue room, when lady Emily being engaged to go out, one morning, rather earlier than usual, a sudden indisposition prevented her, and she retired, after somewhat recovering from a faint sickness that had oppressed her, the result of the vigils of the preceding night, to her boudoir, which was attached to the blue room, in which she now plainly distinguished a male and female voice, in earnest conversation, but scarce louder than a whisper, so that it was impossible for her to hear one word, or to recognise the voice of any one there." That room," thought she to herself, as a smile passed over her countenance, "seems to be the rendezvous of gallantry; and I suppose some duo of our vulgar servants are carrying on their odious intrigue, or their homely honest courtship, as they call it,

in my best apartment-the wretches! it is enough to make one detest the very idea of love! Heigh ho! But I will not allow this!" And an irresistible impulse caused her ladyship to rush from her boudoir, just at the moment when her husband was, with the opened door, enfolding a female to his bosom, of ripened years, but of extreme beauty, though her face bore on it evident marks of settled grief.

Lady Emily retreated; she felt that she could not bear to insult such a female; but she experienced some inward agitation when she heard the colonel say

"Fear nothing, my beloved Constance; I will never forsake you-all shall be as you wish. Command me, in every thing! while I have life I devote myself to you and your interests!". 、i

The enraged wife entered her boudoir, and threw herself on a sofa, giving way to a passionate burst of tears, and persuading herself that she felt more anguish

of

of mind than she really did; she suddenly started up, with the firm resolution of remonstrating with her faithless husband; and hearing him enter his library, she speeded thither, and, to his great astonishment, she presented herself before him.

66

Emily!" said the colonel, starting

back at this unlooked-for vision.

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Yes, sir," said she, "it is Emily! your injured, unhappy Emily! Base man! you said you was engaged all day, a few miles from town, and told me of some choice china, which, if I wished to purchase, I must be at the sale at a very early hour. Yes, yes; this was to get me out of the house, that you might carry on your vile intrigue in my ab sence!-oh, villain! villain!"

It is not possible for us to enumerate all the abusive epithets this violent lady bestowed on her almost passive husband, nor could their enumeration afford much amusement to our readers.

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