expected to shine forth with greater éclat than in London, and to obtain admiration more worthy of her acceptance than any which a country circle could offer. To Bath, therefore, she prepared to go; and the young heart of Adeline beat high with pleasure at the idea of mixing with that busy world which her fancy had often clothed in the most winning attractions.

But her joy, and Mrs Mowbray's was a little over-clouded at the moment of their departure, by the sight of Dr Norberry's melancholy countenance. What was to be, as they fondly imagined, their gain, was his loss, and with a full heart he came to bid them adieu.

For Adeline he had conceived not only affection, but esteem amounting almost to veneration; for she appeared to him to unite various and opposing excellencies. Though possessed of taste and talents for literature, she was skilled in the minutest details of housewifery and feminine occupations: and at the same time she bore her faculties so meekly, that she never wounded the self-love of any one, by arrogating to herself any superiority.

Such Adeline appeared to her excellent old friend; and his affection for her was, perhaps, increased by the necessity which he was under of concealing it at home. The praises of Mrs Mowbray and Adeline were odious to the ears of Mrs Norberry and her daughters,—but especially the praises of the latter,—as the merit of Adeline was so uniform, that even the eye of envy could not at that period discover any thing in her vulnerable to censure: and as the sound of her name excited in his family a number of bad passions and corresponding expressions of countenance, the doctor wisely resolved to keep his feelings, with regard to her, locked up in his own bosom.

But he persisted in visiting at the Park daily; and it is no wonder, therefore, that the loss, even for a few months, of the society of its inhabitants should by him be anticipated as a serious calamity.

'Pshaw!' cried he, as Adeline, with an exulting bound sprung after her mother into the carriage, 'how gay and delighted you are! though my heart feels sadly queer and heavy.'

'My dear friend,' cried Mrs Mowbray, 'I must miss your society wherever I go.'—'I wish you were going too,' said Adeline: 'I shall often think of you.' 'Pshaw, girl! don't lie,' replied Dr Norberry, swallowing a sigh as he spoke: 'you will soon forget an old fellow like me.'—'Then I conclude that you will soon forget us.'—'He! how! what! think so at your peril.'—'I must think so, as we usually judge of others by ourselves.'—'Go to—go, miss mal-a-pert.—Well, but, drive on, coachman—this taking leave is plaguey disagreeable, so shake hands and be off.'

They gave him their hands, which he pressed very affectionately, and the carriage drove on.

'I am an old fool,' cried the doctor, wiping his eyes as the carriage disappeared. 'Well: Heaven grant, sweet innocent, that you may return to me as happy and spotless as you now are!'

Mrs Mowbray had been married at a very early age, and had accepted in Mr Mowbray the first man who addressed her: consequently that passion for personal admiration, so natural to women, had in her never been gratified, nor even called forth. But seeing herself, at the age of thirty-eight, possessed of almost undiminished beauty, she recollected that her charms had never received that general homage for which nature intended them; and she who at twenty had disregarded, even to a fault, the ornaments of dress, was now, at the age of thirty-eight, eager to indulge in the extremes of decoration, and to share in the delights of conquest and admiration with her youthful and attractive daughter.

Attractive, rather than handsome, was the epithet best suited to describe Adeline Mowbray. Her beauty was the beauty of expression of countenance, not regularity of feature, though the uncommon fairness and delicacy of her complexion, the lustre of her hazel eyes, her long dark eye-lashes, and the profusion of soft light hair which curled over the ever-mantling colour of her cheek, gave her some pretensions to what is denominated beauty. But her own sex declared she was plain—and perhaps they were right—though the other protested against the decision—and probably they were right also: but women criticize in detail, men admire in the aggregate. Women reason, and men feel, when passing judgment on female beauty: and when a woman declares another to be plain, the chances are that she is right in her opinion, as she cannot, from her being a woman, feel the charm of that power to please, that 'something than beauty dearer,' which often throws a veil over the irregularity of features and obtains, for even a plain woman, from men at least, the appellation of pretty.

Whether Adeline's face were plain or not, her form could defy even the severity of female criticism. She was indeed tall, almost to a masculine degree; but such were the roundness and proportion of her limbs, such the symmetry of her whole person, such the lightness and gracefulness of her movements, and so truly feminine were her look and manner, that superior height was forgotten in the superior loveliness of her figure.

It is not to be wondered at, then, that Miss Mowbray was an object of attention and admiration at Bath, as soon as she appeared, nor that her mother had her share of flattery and followers. Indeed, when it was known that Mrs Mowbray was a rich widow, and Adeline dependent upon her, the mother became, in the eyes of some people, much more attractive than her daughter.

It was impossible, however, that, in such a place as Bath, Mrs Mowbray and Adeline could make, or rather retain, a general acquaintance. Their opinions on most subjects were so very different from those of the world, and they were so little conscious, from the retirement in which they lived, that this difference existed, or was likely to make them enemies, that not a day elapsed in which they did not shock the prejudices of some, and excite the contemptuous pity of others; and they soon saw their acquaintance coolly dropped by those who, as persons of family and fortune, had on their first arrival sought it with eagerness.

But this was not entirely owing to the freedom of their sentiments on politics, or on other subjects; but, because they associated with a well-known but obnoxious author;—a man whose speculations had delighted the inquiring but ignorant lover of novelty, terrified the timid idolater of ancient usages, and excited the regret of the cool and rational observer:—regret, that eloquence so overwhelming, powers of reasoning so acute, activity of research so praise-worthy, and a love of investigation so ardent, should be thrown away on the discussion of moral and political subjects, incapable of teaching the world to build up again with more beauty and propriety, a fabric, which they were perhaps, calculated to pull down: in short, Mrs Mowbray and Adeline associated with Glenmurray, that author over whose works they had long delighted to meditate, and who had completely led their imagination captive, before the fascination of his countenance and manners had come in aid of his eloquence.

CHAPTER IV

Frederic Glenmurray was a man of family, and of a small independent estate, which, in case he died without children, was to go to the next male heir; and to that heir it was certain it would go, as Glenmurray on principle was an enemy to marriage, and consequently not likely to have a child born in wedlock.

It was unfortunate circumstance for Glenmurray, that, with the ardour of a young and inexperienced mind, he had given his eccentric opinions to the world as soon as they were conceived and arranged,—as he, by so doing, prejudiced the world against him in so unconquerable a degree, that to him almost every door and heart was shut; and he by that means excluded from every chance of having the errors of his imagination corrected by the arguments of the experienced and enlightened—and corrected, no