"What a delightful being is Henry Molyneux," remarked Mrs. Auget to her husband, when the breakfast-party had separated, and the lady and gentlemen found themselves left together and alone.

"How fortunate is dear Emily in obtaining one to whom all in the highest and most learned society will not fail to look up! I can see nothing but perfect and enviable happiness in store for her. How vain, how unwise were those dreams in which we used to indulge, when we desired that our Emily might bestow her hand upon a coronet; when a titled head was all we sighed for, and we thought not of heart or mind! What are coronets to wisdom and learning such as his! What title can compare with that of a wise man and philosopher! Now, what do we see, we behold youth and refinement, affection and learning, innocence and splendid church-patronage, fall, like a ripened peach, at our Emily's feet! The high character of Henry Molyneux, and your magnificent settlement upon her, will place Emily on the pinnacle of society. My affection for her has

crushed all my once vain, fond impulses of ambition. She will see the frivolity of the world, and rejoice to have escaped them in innocence and contentment; and Lord Byborough thinks that with such talents Molyneux may rise to be a bishop."

"Yes!" exclaimed Mr. Auget, stirring up, with his hand de profundis in his pocket, a heap of sonorous pieces of gold, until they rivalled a hailstorm at a provincial theatre;

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yes! the young people shall not want any prospect of happiness which I can give them. I shall toss the young man a round order for fifty thousand on his marriage, beside expectations. Pity he is so yellow, and so skin and bone."

Mr. and Mrs. Auget separated; the one to her "literary boudoir," the other to sound his tenants upon the approaching election. Already Mr. Auget found himself becoming a politician. As brevet father-in-law to a man who might emerge a bishop, Mr. Auget found himself becoming a zealot in favour of the existing ministry.

CHAPTER IV.

Perhaps he found me worthless;

But, till he did so, in these ears of mine —

These credulous ears-there poured the sweetest sounds
That art or love could frame."

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.

WITHIN an hour after breakfast, Henry Molyneux contrived to disengage himself from the gentle, but inane, society of Emily Auget. He gave his promise to return with a lover's haste it was enough; Emily measured the degree of that particular species of haste by a standard perfectly true, but not exactly marked with the same scale which Henry Molyneux would have adopted as his own. He was obliged in courtesy, if not in kindness, to call upon Colonel Grey and his cousins, after many weeks of absence. He had nerved himself to see Constance, and act his part as

circumstances should direct; to explain away, with the best and most ingenious grace, the ill impression which Albert Grey had derived from his abandonment of Constance. From the Retreat, he purposed to prolong his ride to Windersleigh Abbey. He had to probe the wound which he had covertly inflicted, the day before, upon the mind of Sir Reginald, to discover its depth, and to ascertain its tendency to fester.

Emily penetrated not the real purpose of his visit to the Retreat; she doubted not that Miss Grey, the interesting invalid, would be much enlivened, much strengthened, by the sight of her delightful relative; and in the spirit of the most disinterested generosity, Emily entreated him not to leave Constance Grey on her account, if he perceived that his society gave her relief.

Henry Molyneux found himself riding gaily down the lane that led from the highroad to the entrance of the Retreat. The recent communication of Mr. Auget's intention to "toss him a round order for fifty thousand on his marriage," by no means

weakened his determination to cast off Constance Grey at all hazards; it by no means clouded the goodly prospects attendant on his approaching adoption into the family of his wealthy host. True, when escaping from the affectionate, but negative Emily Auget, for a meeting with his accomplished and highminded cousin, he acknowledged a pang of regret, that Emily was not such as Constance. True, that he felt conscious his heart was not with the heiress; but his ambition was fixed; his exertions to raise himself to commanding affluence had been successful; and he forgot all else in the golden visions opened before him.

The arrival of Henry Molyneux at the Retreat was expected. He had himself announced it in his note of the preceding morning. He had even stated that an important communication might be expected from him; but in terms so gentle and so kind, that without the aid of her brother's painful comments, Constance would have welcomed Henry Molyneux as the promised bearer of joyful

news.