time, Seymour triumphantly exclaimed, "There, Helen! I believe that you distrusted my love for the country; but have I once expressed or felt a wish to go to London?"

"The ides of March are come, but not gone," I replied; "and surely if I wish to go, you will not deny me."

"No, Helen, certainly not," said he in a tone of mortification; "if I am no longer all-sufficient for your happiness."

Alas! in the ingenuousness of my nature, I gave way when he said this to the tenderness of my heart, and assured him that my happiness depended wholly on the enjoyment of his society; and I fear it is too true that men soon learn to slight what they are sure of possessing. Had I been an artful woman, and could I have condescended to make him doubtful of the extent of my love, by a few woman's subterfuges; could I have feigned a desire to return to the world, instead of owning, as I did, that all my enjoyment was comprised in home and him; I do think that I might have been for a much longer period the happiest of wives; but then I should have been, in my own eyes, despicable as a woman, and I was always tenacious of my own esteem.

May was come, but not gone—when I found my husband was continually reading to me, after having previously read to himself, the accounts in the papers of the gaieties of London.

"What a tempting account this is, Helen, of the Exhibition at Somerset House!—I should like to see it. Seeing pictures is an elegant rational amusement. And here are soon to be a ball and supper at Ranelagh. A fine place Ranelagh for such an entertainment."

Here he read a list of routs and cotillion balls at different places; but one day he read, with infinite mortification, that our uncle, Mr. Pendarves, had given a ball on the return of his son-in-law to Parliament.

"How abominable," cried Seymour, "for my uncle to give a ball, and not invite us to go up to it!"

"You forget," replied I, "that, knowing our passion for the country, and that we had abjured the world, he did not like to ask us, because he knew he should be refused."

"I am not so sure he would have been refused, Helen; or, as to having abjured the world—No, no; we are not such fools as to do that—are we, my dearest girl?"

"We are bound by no vows, certainly; and, as soon as retirement is become irksome to you, we can go to London."

"Did I say that retirement was grown irksome? Oh, fie! such an idea never entered my thoughts: besides, as this fine ball is over, what should we go to London for?"

"There may be other fine balls, and fine parties, you know."

"True; but really, Helen, I begin to believe you wish to go to London."

"If you do, I do certainly."

"I!—Not I indeed. Ah, Helen! I suspect you are not ingenuous with me; and you do wish to go."

I only smiled: but I soon found that the book did not get forward, that the newspapers were anxiously expected, and that my Spanish master sometimes forgot his task in the indulgence of reverie; and I debated within myself, whether it would not be for our interest and our domestic comfort, to propose to go to London, in order to conceal from him as long as I could that I was not sufficient for his happiness; and that he would live and die a man of the world. I was the more ready to do this, because I wished that my mother should not see my empire was on the decline. Why did I so wish? I hoped it was because I was desirous to spare her any anxiety for my peace; but I fear it also was because I did not like that she should have cause to suspect her choice for me was likely to have proved a better one than my own. (I believe I have observed before, how strong my conviction is, that there is scarcely such a thing in nature as a single motive of action.)

I therefore, in the presence of my mother, hinted a wish to go to London for six weeks. She started, and looked suspiciously at Pendarves; while he, with an odd mixture of surprise, joy, and mortification in his countenance, exclaimed—

"Do I hear right, Helen? Are you, after all you have declared, desirous of going to London?"

"I am: 'Variety is charming,' says the proverb; and here you know it is toujours perdrix!"

"Well, there, madam," said Pendarves, turning to my mother, "you will now, I hope, believe what I assured you of some time ago, that Helen had a passion for London?"

"C'est selon," replied my mother, "to use a French phrase, in answer to Helen's," and darting, as she spoke, a penetrating glance at me.

"I assure you," replied I, "that my wish to go to London originates with myself, as I believe that this journey to the metropolis is the wisest, as well as the most agreeable thing I could desire."

My mother sighed; and a "Well, my child, I have no reason to doubt your word," broke languidly from her lips, while she suddenly rose and left the room.

"And are you really in earnest, Helen?" said Pendarves.

"Never more so; and unless my proposal is very distasteful to you, I beg you will write directly, and engage lodgings."

"Distasteful! oh, no! quite the contrary. I shall be proud to exhibit my lovely wife in London, where, no doubt, she will be as much admired as she was abroad.—Do you think," he affectionately added, "that I have forgotten the exquisite pleasure I experienced at seeing you the object of general attraction wherever you moved?"

This was said and felt kindly; still it did not inspire me with that confidence which it seemed likely to inspire; for I, though I was conscious of my husband's personal beauty, had no vanity to gratify in exhibiting him to the London world. I had no wish to be the most envied of women, it was sufficient for me to know that I was the happiest; and I thought that, if Pendarves loved as truly as I did, the consciousness of his happiness would have been sufficient for him. Still, I am well aware how wrong it is to judge the love of others according to our own capability of loving. As well, and as justly, might we confine beauty, or the power of pleasing, to one cast of features or complexion. All persons love after a manner of their own; and woe must befal the man or woman who expects to be loved according to their own way and their own degree of loving, without any consideration for the different character and different feelings of the beloved object.

"How absurd I am!" said I to myself, after I had shed some weak tears in the solitude of my chamber, because Pendarves did not love me, I found, as I loved him. "How absurd! True, he delights in the idea of exhibiting me, and I have no wish to exhibit him. After all, he loves more generously than I do, and my selfishness is nothing to be proud of."

Thus I reasoned with myself, and tried to fortify my mind to bear the cares and the dangers which I had, on principle, provoked.

"One word, Helen," said my mother, when she was alone with me after what had passed relative to my projected journey: "Are you sure, my dear child, that in urging your husband to go to London you have acted wisely?"

"As sure as the consciousness of my bounded vision of futurity can allow me to be. I thought it better to forestal my husband's wishes than to wait for the expression of them."

"If not better, it was less mortifying," replied my quick-sighted parent; and we said no more on the subject.

In three days' time we had lodgings procured for us near Hanover Square; and on the fourth day from that on which I made known my wishes, we set off for London. But how different were the feelings of my husband and myself on the occasion! He was all joy and pleased expectation, unmixed with any painful regret or any anxious fears. But I left, for some time, a tenderly beloved mother, and the scene of tranquil and certain enjoyment. I was going, I knew, to encounter, probably, the influence of rivals, both in men and women, in my husband's attentions, and the dangerous power of long and early associations. And how did I know but that into a renewal of intimacy with his former associates I was