whom

you

could wish to be married to? or

are you already engaged to some one whom

you cannot obtain?"

"Really, Madam,"

with the utmost confusion,

returned Henry,

"I do not well

but as you are

know how to answer you; pleased to amuse yourself with asking me such questions, it is my duty to say nothing. but the truth. My heart is engaged-long engaged, to a lady whom I have not scen since I left London, and know not where to seek, nor whether she is living, for I wrote to her several times from Ireland, and never received any answer in return."

"And pray," continued Mrs. Percy, "who may this lady be? and when did your passion begin ?”

"Madam," enswered he, "her name is not proper for me to mention without her permission; but as to my love, it began with my early life, and I am sure will end only with it. It is true, had it not been for your repeated injunctions, not to marry a poor woman, I believe I might have married her:

but she had no fortune, and as I had no preferment in the church, I left her in London, without even an explanation of my conduct to her, and exposed to hear reports concerning me that have made an impression on her mind, which, no doubt, has been the cause of her silence, and which are the bane of all my future hopes. This, Madam, is my unhappy story."

"Perhaps I know more of this lady than you can possibly imagine," said Mrs. Percy, with a smile; “ and let me tell you, that I shall soon make you laugh at your constancy, and bend your affections upon one

whom I can recommend."

Ah, Madam!" replied Henry, with a tear glistening in his eye, "I see you are pleased to divert yourself at the expence of your unhappy son. But you must forgive my plainness in saying that you do not know the lady, if you think that any other. woman in the world is able to make any impression on my heart, or alter my resolution never to change my condition."

"No!

"No! nor not know her!" returned

Mrs. Percy.

Suppose I should ask you to look up-to look up and behold that Arcadian picture, which hangs there upon the wall!"

On this Henry ventured to raise his eyes, and fixing them steadily on the picture, seemed to be in the strongest agitation.

"What! Henry," exclaimed the mother, "do you think me ignorant of your love for Clara Williams? and is it also possible that you love, though acquainted with her destiny?"

At this name, and the mention of her destiny, Henry uttered a loud exclamation, and entreated Mrs. Percy to explain what she meant by allusions at once so terrific and ambiguous. His tender mother prevailed on him to sit down quietly by her, and with equal dignity and esteem reasoned with him on the subject of his love, and at the same time gave him the history of Clara, as a proof of the necessity of extinguishing, it totally and for ever.

Among the many private calamities," said Mrs. Percy, "which followed the

change of the Rockingham administration, Clara's father had, by his services and attachment to the popular cause, drawn the resentment of the reigning minister so heavily upon him, that he deprived him at once of the offices he enjoyed in the home department of the state. Mr. Williams felt the effects of this so severely, that his spirits, which had nobly supported the utmost malice of his former fortune, suffered under the ingratitude of a person whom he once particularly served, and he retired to Wales, as you must know, where he died broken hearted, and nearly in the lowest state of distress. He left Clara, and a younger daughter; and the small property of Ivy Farm was to form the whole means of their support. Clara, soon after her father's death, had recourse to the friendship of the Miss Courtneys, and, placing her little sister in a respectable school, she left Wales, and lived in the genteel state of dependence

in which you must at various times have seen her. On her arrival in London, the beauty of her form, and the sweetness of her temper, soon gained her universal esteem, and made her be admitted with pleasure to share every advantage of society with the Courtney family, to which she was the most particularly engaged. She had lived in this happy tranquillity till your departure from London; and the presumed causes of that departure made such an impression on her mind, that she was taken dangerously ill, and had to have recourse to various methods for the recovery of her spirits and health. When somewhat recovered, a banker, who was intimate with her friends, had frequent opportunities of conversing with her, and falling in love with, proposed to marry her. Such an offer, though so highly advantageous, was long hesitated upon by Clara, but the prudential arguments of her friends, and, above all, a horrible and mistaken belief that you were the most abandoned of mankind, prevailed upon her dutiful

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