circumstances which led to her being in a cold winter's night, houseless and unprotected, a melancholy wanderer towards the house of her father.

Before the expiration of the month, Clifford had triumphed over the virtue of Agnes; and soon after he received orders to join his regiment, as it was going to be sent on immediate service.—"But you will return to me before you embark, in order to make me your wife?" said the half-distracted Agnes; "you will not leave me to shame as well as misery?" Clifford promised every thing she wished; and Agnes tried to lose the pangs of parting, in anticipation of the joy of his return. But on the very day when she expected him, she received a letter from him, saying that he was under sailing orders, and to see her again before the embarkation was impossible.

To do Clifford justice, he in this instance told truth; and, as he really loved Agnes as well as a libertine can love, he felt the agitation and distress which his letter expressed; though, had he returned to her, he had an excuse ready prepared for delaying the marriage.

Words can but ill describe the situation of Agnes on the receipt of this letter.—The return of Clifford was not to be expected for months at least; and perhaps he might never return!—The thought of his danger was madness:—but, when she reflected that she should in all probability be a mother before she became a wife, in a transport of frantic anguish she implored heaven in mercy to put an end to her existence.—"O my dear, injured father!" she exclaimed, "I, who was once your pride, am now your disgrace!—and that child whose first delight it was to look up in your face, and see your eyes beaming with fondness on her, can now never dare to meet their glance again."

But, though Agnes dared not presume to write to her father till she could sign herself the wife of Clifford, she could not exist without making some secret inquiries concerning his health and spirits; and, before he left her, Clifford recommended a trusty messenger to her for the purpose.—The first account which she received was, that Fitzhenry was well; the next, that he was dejected; the three following, that his spirits were growing better,—and the last account was, that he was married.——

"Married!" cried Agnes rushing into her chamber, and shutting the door after her, in a manner sufficiently indicative to the messenger of the anguish she hastened from him to conceal;—"Married!—Clifford abroad,—perhaps at this moment a corpse,—and my father married!—What, then, am I? A wretch forlorn! an outcast from society!—no one to love, no one to protect and cherish me! Great God! wilt thou not pardon me if I seek a refuge from my suffering in the grave?"

Here nature suddenly and powerfully impressed on her recollection that she was about to become a parent; and, falling on her knees, she sobbed out, "What am I, did I ask?—I am a mother, and earth still holds me by a tie too sacred to be broken!"

Then by degrees she became calmer, and rejoiced, fervently rejoiced, in her father's second marriage, though she felt it as too convincing a proof how completely he had thrown her from his affections. She knew that the fear of a second family's diminishing the strong affection which he bore to her was his reason for not marrying again, and now it was plain that he married in hopes of losing his affection for her. Still this information removed a load from her mind, by showing her that Fitzhenry felt himself capable of receiving happiness from other hands than hers; and she resolved, if she heard that he was happy in his change of situation, never to recall to his memory the daughter whom it was so much his interest to forget.

The time of Agnes's confinement now drew near,—a time which fills with apprehension even the wife, who is soothed and supported by the tender attentions of an anxious husband, and the assiduities of affectionate relations and friends, and who knows that the child with which she is about to present them will at once gratify their affections and their pride. What then must have been the sensations of Agnes at a moment so awful and dangerous as this!—Agnes, who had no husband to soothe her by his anxious inquiries, no relations or friends to cheer her drooping soul by the expressions of sympathy, and whose child, instead of being welcomed by an exulting family, must be, perhaps, a stranger even to its nearest relations!

But in proportion to her trials seemed to be Agnes's power of rising superior to them; and, after enduring her sufferings with a degree of fortitude and calmness that astonished the mistress of the house, whom compassion had induced to attend on her, she gave birth to a lovely boy.—From that moment, though she rarely smiled, and never saw any one but her kind landlady, her mind was no longer oppressed by the deep gloom under which she had before laboured; and when she had heard from Clifford, or of her father's being happy, and clasped her babe to her bosom, Agnes might almost be pronounced cheerful.

After she had been six months a mother, Clifford returned; and, in the transport of seeing him safe, Agnes forgot for a moment that she had been anxious and unhappy. Now again was the subject of the marriage resumed; but just as the wedding day was fixed, Clifford was summoned away to attend his expiring father, and Agnes was once more doomed to the tortures of suspense.

After a month's absence Clifford came back, but appeared to labour under a dejection of spirits which he seemed studious to conceal from her. Alarmed and terrified at an appearance so unusual, she demanded an explanation, which the consummate deceiver gave at length, after many entreaties on her part, and feigned reluctance on his. He told her that his father's illness was occasioned by his having been informed that he was privately married to her; that he had sent for him to inquire into the truth of the report; and, being convinced by his solemn assurance that no marriage had taken place, he had commanded him, unless he wished to kill him, to take a solemn oath never to marry Agnes Fitzhenry without his consent.

"And did you take the oath?" cried Agnes, her whole frame trembling with agitation.—"What could I do?" replied he; "my father's life in evident danger if I refused; besides the dreadful certainty that he would put his threats in execution of cursing me with his dying breath;—and, cruel as he is, Agnes, I could not help feeling that he was my father."——"Barbarian!" exclaimed she, "I sacrificed my father to you!—An oath! O God! have you then taken an oath never to be mine?" and, saying this, she fell into a long and deep swoon.

When she recovered, but before she was able to speak, she found Clifford kneeling by her; and, while she was too weak to interrupt him, he convinced her that he did not at all despair of his father's consent to his making her his wife, else, he should have been less willing to give so ready a consent to take the oath imposed on him, even although his father's life depended on it. "Oh! no," replied Agnes, with a bitter smile; "you wrong yourself; you are too good a son to have been capable of hesitating a moment;—there are few children so bad, so very bad as I am!"—and, bursting into an agony of grief, it was long before the affectionate language and tender caresses of Clifford could restore her to tranquillity.

Another six months elapsed, during which time Clifford kept her hopes alive, by telling her that he every day saw fresh signs of his father's relenting in her favour.—At these times she would say, "Lead me to him; let him hear the tale of my wretchedness; let me say to him, For your son's sake I have left the best of fathers, the happiest of homes, and have become an outcast from society!—then would I bid him look at this pale cheek, this emaciated form, proofs of the anguish that is undermining my constitution; and tell him to beware how, by forcing you to withhold from me my right, he made you