THINGS

BY THEIR

RIGHT NAMES;

A NOVEL,

IN TWO VOLUMES.

BY A PERSON WITHOUT A NAME.

Let us “encompass virtue with associations more than mor-

tal; associations whose steady light may survive the waving

and meterous gleams of sentimental illusion.”—ANONYMOUS.

—“Servant of God, well done! Well has thou fought;

And for the test’mony of truth hast borne

Universal reproach, far worse to bear

Than violence; this was all thy care,

To stand approv’d in sight of God, though worlds

Judg’d thee perverse.”—— MILTON.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR GEORGE ROBINSON, 25, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

1812.

TO

THE DETHRONED SOVEREIGN

TRUTH.

MADAM,

ALTHOUGH your language has become so nearly obsolete, that, in addressing you, I have scarcely a hope to make myself understood; and your abode so obscure, that I know not where to find you; yet, as I am assured by very high authorities that you do still really inhabit this sublunary globe, I venture to present to you the following work.

In laying at your august feet so humble an offering, I am actuated by no selfish consideration. I too well know the rigid limits to which your favours are restricted, to hope that any mark of your grace will be extended to me. But, in attempting to restore “things to their right names,” I thought not of myself, but of you.

On all who rank on the side of your too potent adversary, Falsehood, from the pitiful meanness of well-bred duplicity, to the brazened vice of hardened perjury, I would make war: and if I have laid open one insidious snare of your pretended friends, or repulsed one rude attack of your open enemies, I have accomplished my aim.

May the blow be followed up by able hands, until your Most High Mightiness be restored to your own legitimate sovereignty over the human mind, and recognised as the conservator of all that is dear and precious to man!

I am,

Madam,

Your greatest Admirer,

And humblest Votary.

THINGS

BY THEIR

RIGHT NAMES.

CHAP. I.

PHILOSOPHERS have said, and poets have sung, that every individual of the human race is distinguished by a leading passion peculiar to himself. Now, I have not been so neglected by Nature, as to be left without this appropriate mark of humanity. I too, like the rest of my species, have my ruling passion; and this passion is, the desire of being useful.

Of the means to attain this end, money, talents, and leisure, are the most powerful. Of talents I must not boast, of money I have not any, of leisure I have a great deal. It is my leisure, then, that I must dedicate to the good of my fellow creatures.

Were I a woman, I might find, in an unwearied application to my distaff, the enjoyment even to satiety, of my favorite desire; but being, unfortunately, of the other sex, and far gone in the habits of gentlemanly idleness, I am reduced to my pen, as the single mean in my power of being useful in my generation.

But even to the use of this single mean there is an impediment. What is there in this all-sapient age which is yet to be taught? Where is the mystery undeveloped? the truth that is hidden? Where the most recondite science, that is not made “easy to the meanest capacity?” Let us not, however, despair: in gazing on the sky, we may sometimes stumble over a mole-hill. Thus, while we are learning to direct the winds, to change the temperature of climates, and to disturb the whole economy of Nature; and while we are giving to our astonishing discoveries new and imposing names, do we not conduct our every-day affairs in a jargon where the expression is so foreign from the thing meant to be expressed, as to confound and bewilder our principles of morality,—our ideas of happiness,—our sense of every thing that is just, true, and desirable? The science, therefore, that remains still untaught, is “the science of calling things by their right names:” and this science I undertake to teach.

I could do this in periodical essays, in weekly sermons, in evening lectures, in a poem, a play, a pamphlet, all, no doubt, equally well; but I am not one of those churlish physicians, who, provided they cure their patient, do not care though they half poison him in doing so: no, as the draught is wholesome, so shall it be, if I can make it so, palatable also. The form, at least, shall meet the taste of the age. Sovereigns, statesmen, archbishops and bishops, deans and prebendaries, literati and non-literati, queens, dutchesses, and their chambermaids, all read novels; and therefore,—I will write a Novel.

As the work that I am about to enter upon is not an epic poem, I think myself at liberty to take up my story where it best suits my purposes to do so. And as not only the fortunes, but the characters of many persons, take their colour from the faults or virtues of their remote ancestors, I must be allowed to trace the source of those which distinguished my heroine as far back as I see proper. I shall begin, therefore, with her maternal grandfather.

In an ancient mansion, belonging to an ancient family somewhere in that part of Somersetshire which is washed by the waves of the Bristol Channel, once resided Sir Edward Pynsynt. At the period when the personages were born whose virtues I have undertaken to commemorate in the ensuing history, Sir Edward had been dead many years, but his memory still survived in the hearts of all who had known him.

Sir Edward had been distinguished alike by the superiority of his character, and the more than common share of felicity that had fallen to his lot.

Descended from an illustrious family, the heir of large possessions, and nothing having been wanting in his favour of any of those means which the world esteems necessary to perfect what it is pleased to call a good education, Sir Edward had, from his earliest infancy, been trained to those manners, and initiated into those acquirements, which distinguish the high-fashioned and high-bred. He had, of course, entered the world with all those advantages which are so sure to meet with a good reception there. But, beyond all these adventitious and extraneous gifts which he had received from fortune and from culture, he possessed qualities which he owed to God alone. I have not mistaken the word. When I am teaching the science of true nomenclature, it would ill become me to put the effect for the cause. The philosopher may, if he please, erase the simple monosyllable, and put his favourite Nature in its stead, and let him explain how he has amended the phrase. Will he have rendered his meaning one jot clearer to those of his own sect? while, on the other hand, he will have made it tenfold more obscure to nine parts out of ten of the rest of the human race.

The gifts bestowed upon Sir Edward Pynsynt were worthy of the divine origin from whence they proceeded. An understanding vigorous, clear, and acute; a heart warm, tender, and true; a temper cheerful and conciliating; an integrity incorruptible, with all that marks the honest man from the knave. This was so distinguishing a part of his character, that truth, open and fair as daylight, shone forth in every look, word, and action. Subterfuge, chicanery, double meanings, were far from him; even the allowed duplicity of politeness was abhorrent to his taste, and made no part of his system of benevolence.

Sir Edward had been determined in the choice of a wife less by the charms of the lady’s person, than by the apparent sweetness of her temper, and the quickness and teachableness of her understanding: or, to express myself more accurately, these were the qualities that Sir Edward himself believed to have determined his election. In fact, however, the beauty of Caroline Montford was such as to render it something doubtful, whether Sir Edward’s judgment could have had fair play; and made it a question, whether his heart had not been betrayed by his senses, rather than yielded by his reason. If this were the case, Sir Edward was not less fortunate in this particular, than in all the other circumstances that have been enumerated above. Caroline was not only “all that youthful poets fancy when they love,” but all that human excellence can be in a girl scarcely eighteen. The gay and frank manners of Sir Edward, and the spirit of his conversation, had carried off the fair prize from several competitors, his superiors in station and fortune; and the bridal hours were scarcely past, before she discovered that she had gained a possession beyond the value of all that rank and riches can of themselves bestow.

As the standard of possible merit was high in the mind of Sir Edward, he would not easily have borne that the object of his most impassioned affections should have fallen much below it. He regarded his Caroline as the connoisseur regards the inestimable gem which gives distinction to his cabinet. No eye gazes on it with delight equal to his own; but neither does any so soon perceive the casual particle of dust, or the gathering damp, which threaten to obscure its lustre. With these feelings, Sir Edward was not more the lover, than the guardian and preceptor of his Caroline; and under his forming care the charming girl became the all-accomplished woman.

Sir Edward had represented to her, that it was not when surrounded by pleasure, assailed by flattery, and pampered with all that riches can procure, that at eighteen we learn to know ourselves, or to understand the claims that others have upon us; and he had easily led her to retire with him to the seat of his ancestors, on the confines of the Bristol Channel. Here, in a regular series of instructive reading, in the cultivation of every elegant talent, and the acquirement of every useful art, and in the interchangement of the good offices and real pleasures which the society of the good and the rational may every where afford, their hours of amusement were past; those of duty, in every exertion of active benevolence and even-handed justice, that their situation as lords paramount of the neighbourhood, or as the richest people in it, could give occasion for. But the line of demarcation between pleasure and duty;—that line which, to the worldling and the licentious, appears sketched with so broad a stroke, and with a colour so deep and decided, was with them but faintly defined. Their pleasures and their duties were so much the same, were so intermingled and melted into each other, that the social dinner was often an act of benevolence; and the amusements of the drawing-room the saving of a law-suit. A visit to a sick cottage often superseded the hour of study; and the harp and the pencil gave way to the instruction of the village-girl in the arts of the needle or the spinning wheel: nor, when the hour of reflection came, was it possible for Sir Edward or Lady Pynsynt to discover whether they had that day been pursuing their duty or their pleasure.

This harmony between the good and the pleasant was not to be imputed alone to the scene on which they acted the part of life. It is true, that a residence in the country is favourable to the virtues of moderation, order, and benevolence; but it is equally true, that they are not necessarily connected with it. Intemperance, misrule, and oppression, may be seen under the shade of a tree, as certainly, though, perhaps, not so frequently, as amongst “the crowded marts of busy men.” But actions that spring from principles, are the same in all situations, however varying. Sir Edward and Lady Pynsynt called themselves Christians. What they called themselves, they strove to be: and it is in the divine system of christian ethics that we are to look for the rule of conduct which they prescribed to themselves. Hence they saved much confusion of ideas, and many puzzling disquisitions, on the right and wrong of their every-day actions. How a “man of honour” would act in such or such a case; what might, or might not, be consonant to the manners or ideas of a gentleman; what did, or did not, accord with his rank and dignity, might admit of debate, and a variety of opinions; but, to “do justice,” to “love mercy,” and to “walk humbly with their God,” was a plain doctrine, in which there could be no mistake. And so they did walk, for several years after their marriage, in the flowery paths which surrounded the Priory, themselves the happiest of human beings, and the blessing and delight of all with whom they had to do. Having thus, in the security of retirement, allowed time for their principles to take deep root in their hearts, and their virtues to grow strong by habit, they did not fear to enter again into the world; from which, before they were so well secured from its seductions, they had so wisely withdrawn. Not only in the capital of their own country, but in that of most of the states on the continent, did they, in the course of some years, mix with the great, the polite, and the learned. From this varying experience, ever endeavouring to extract something by which to amend themselves, or to benefit others; and learning, as the result of the whole, that virtue is the parent of happiness, and home her most favourite abode!

Lady Pynsynt had now been the wife of Sir Edward twenty years. In the course of this time she had born him several children, three only of whom now survived—a daughter who had completed her eighteenth year, a son who had not yet attained his fifteenth, and a girl of eight years old.

Sedulously occupied in the cultivation of the good qualities of her children; blest in the unabated love of the fondest of husbands; surrounded by friends; followed by the prayers and blessings of her dependants; high in affluence; and her bosom yet glowing with the warm energies of youth; perhaps at no one period of her existence had Lady Pynsynt been so completely happy; at no time could she have thought so little of the darkness of futurity.

On the uncertain tenure by which all sublunary bliss is held, Lady Pynsynt had not unfrequently reflected: nor did she suppose that she was wholly unprepared to meet, with patience and resignation, whatever change might be appointed. She was now called upon to prove, by experience, how different is the degree of courage necessary to contemplate the greatest evils as possible, and to feel them as certain.

Sir Edward, on mounting his horse to take his morning’s ride, had promised an early return:—but Sir Edward returned no more!—a fall from his horse had at once terminated his mortal existence, and rendered life an almost insupportable burthen to Lady Pynsynt.—Yet she sunk not under the blow.—Dead to every pleasure, to every duty she was alive. Her children, her friends, her dependants, lost nothing of her care, her attention, her activity: but, although she had not yet attained her fortieth year, although she was blest with beauty, health, and affluence, many years wore away, and no one could say that they had seen a smile enlighten her countenance.

Lady Pynsynt survived Sir Edward about fifteen years; and this period was marked by several events which were ill calculated to dispel that gloom with which his death had overshadowed her mind. Her son, on the death of his father, had immediately been placed, by his guardians, at one of those public schools where the manly character is supposed to unfold itself with so much advantage. From hence he had been removed to one of the universities. Here he soon discovered, that a fatherless youth of eighteen, the certain heir of ten thousand pounds a year, could be under no necessity to regulate his expenses by any other rule than his own ungoverned appetite. Nor did he suffer the discovery to remain inefficient.—“Honour,” says some body, “is not hereditary, though honours are.” Sir George Pynsynt resembled little the parent from whence he sprung: and although he had qualities which might have been trained into virtues, had they continued longer under the judicious and fostering hand of Sir Edward; yet being now suffered to wither from neglect, or allowed to run wild in a wrong direction, the weeds, with which they were surrounded, soon checked the good seed, and made Sir George’s mind appear like a garden long uncultivated, where, though here and there a beautiful flower rears its head, and excites surprise and admiration, the general appearance is forbidding deformity.

From the university, Sir George went abroad: he returned to be elected to Parliament for one of his own boroughs, found means to exchange his borough for a peerage, dismissed his Italian mistress, married splendidly, and continued to make laws for his country, and to break them in every action of his life. Lady Pynsynt, however, had not the mortification of witnessing the whole of this worthy career: other cares, other sorrows, before she had quite lost all hopes of better things from the degenerate son of so worthy a parent, had conducted her to the tomb. Her eldest daughter, when on the point of marriage with a gentleman as well approved by Lady Pynsynt as acceptable to the young lady herself, saw all her prospects of happiness snatched from her grasp by the hand of death. The lover died, after a few days’ illness, of an inflammatory fever; and Lady Pynsynt felt the full weight of this accumulation of misfortune. It seemed, indeed, as if the death of Sir Edward had been the signal of disaster, or misconduct, to every individual of his family: and the life and death of Lady Pynsynt were an awful display of some of those mysterious dealings of Providence, which it is not given us in this world to understand. The star of her morning had risen with no common brightness; she was virtuous as she was happy; yet did she lie down in sorrow, and her name was repeated with a sigh!

In the little sprightly engaging Louisa, however, both the mother and the daughter found an object of interest that still attached them to the world. But Lady Pynsynt’s vital powers were now nearly exhausted; and the last act of her existence was the concluding a marriage between Louisa and a young gentleman of the name of Fitzosborn.

Mr. Fitzosborn was the second son of a gentleman of good birth and large estate; but this estate was settled on the eldest son; and there being a third boy; and a numerous train of sisters, the provision for the younger branches of the family was not proportionable to their rank in life. Neither ambition nor avarice had, however, a place in Lady Pynsynt’s bosom: her daughter’s fortune was fifteen thousand pounds; and she thought this sum in addition to Mr. Fitzosborn’s property, and the profits that might be reasonably expected as the result of his abilities and industry, would afford such a competency, as would be sufficient to secure the end of all riches—happiness. She had, upon these reasonings, yielded to the earnest wishes of her daughter; and pleased herself in believing, that the humble establishment of the sister would be productive of more happiness and virtue, than she dared to flatter herself would result from the larger possessions and more extended power of the brother.

A few months after the marriage of Mrs. Fitzosborn, Lady Pynsynt breathed her last, and left Miss Pynsynt one of the most desolated of human beings. From the period that had deprived her of her betrothed lover, she had dedicated all her affections to her mother and sister. The one was lost to her for ever in this world; and the other had now so many new calls upon her heart and attentions, that Miss Pynsynt could scarcely hope that she should retain that share in either, which had, for the last ten years of her life, made the sweetest part of her existence.

Mrs. Fitzosborn’s residence was to be in London, the scene of Miss Pynsynt’s greatest sorrows, and the place to which she had resolved to return no more. Sir George was, at the time of his mother’s death, residing in Italy; and, had he been in England, Miss Pynsynt had but little reason to suppose that she would have found in his family a comfortable asylum. The gleams of affection, the flashes of generosity, which had, from time to time, illuminated his earlier years, had now ceased; and her intercourse with him was one dispiriting, unbroken darkness. Thus, not perceiving that any connexion which remained to her offered either indemnification for those of which she had been deprived, or even support under the acute sense that she had of such deprivation, she resolved to seek her consolation in the indulgence of her sorrows; and, at four and thirty, to bid adieu to the world. Lady Pynsynt had been enabled to add to the original fortune of Miss Pynsynt some thousand pounds; and, with a property amounting to something more than twenty thousand pounds, she retired to a small house within thirty miles of the Priory.

Here she had lived for more than ten years, almost wholly forgotten by all who had once known her: seldom seen, except by her servants, and by the neighbouring poor, to whom she was a most unwearied and tender-hearted benefactress; to the extent, and beyond the annual extent, of her means. She had no source of expense which at all entered into competition with the call of benevolence, except the adorning her house and gardens: and, by employing the labourers and workmen of her neighbourhood, she contrived to gratify at once her taste and her principle.

When first she retired to the Grove, her sorrows were legitimate, and her plan rational: but, by having removed herself from the control which the eye of society has over the conduct of every human being, she had accustomed herself to consecrate as virtues all the feelings of her heart, and, in the want of other objects for her affections, had found one in the indulgence of affliction. Hence she had converted her habitation into a temple of constancy and sorrow. Every room was adorned with the memorials of her loss, or emblems of her grief. She had surrounded it with shady groves, formed for contemplation; and with gloomy grottos, where sorrow might meditate—“e’en to madness.”

Do we find it scarcely credible that the pupil of Sir Edward and Lady Pynsynt, of whose virtues she was almost an adorer, and whose words were to her as the fiat of a Superior Intelligence, could thus deviate from the line of sound reasoning and genuine resignation? The anomaly arose from “calling things by wrong names.” An indulgence of every selfish feeling she called “a dedication of her mind to the virtues of her lost friends;” a withdrawal from the reciprocal duties of society, “an abandonment of all earthly affections.” Thus, without one culpable inclination, without one wrong intention, Miss Pynsynt, with the exception of her beneficence to the poor, scarcely performed one laudable action. With the consciousness of the eye of Providence over every thought, she suffered her heart to dictate to her reason: with submission to the decrees of her Creator in her mouth, her whole life was a continued murmur against his will: and in the indulgence of her grief for the past, she overlooked the present, and forgot the future.

But the period, which had thus been nearly a blank to Miss Pynsynt, had been one of much bustle and vicissitude to her nearest relations. Sir George, within the term named, had returned to England, had been made a peer, had married, and had now two sons and a daughter. Mrs. Fitzosborn had passed through all the degrees of matrimonial love; from the most ardent passion to the coolest indifference. The happiness that Lady Pynsynt had promised herself, as the result of her daughter’s marriage, was to have been founded on the unostentatious virtues of prudence, diligence, frugality, and moderation. It happened, however, that those were not the virtues that distinguished either Mr. Fitzosborn or his lady. One guinea had not been saved by her prudence, or gained by his industry. While they had continued to love each other, they had played the fool together; when they had grown indifferent, they had played the fool separately. For their mutual accommodation, Mrs. Fitzosborn had found means to give up her settlement: the money was spent; debts were accumulated; and, at the end of ten years, with broken fortunes and a ruined constitution, Mrs. Fitzosborn found herself on the eve of bringing into the world a wretched human being, whom she had deprived of the means of subsistence.

The voice of conscience, often silenced, now spoke in accents it was impossible not to hear, and hearing to regard. Mrs. Fitzosborn poured out all her self-reproach, and all her misery, to her sister: to that sister, of whom she had seldom thought in her gayer hours; or thought of, only to ridicule as romantic and visionary. This letter awakened Miss Pynsynt as from a dream. In her withdrawal of the eye from Mrs. Fitzosborn’s conduct on the entrance into life, and the progress through its difficulties and temptation, she thought she saw the origin of all her deviations from the line of rectitude; and charging her own negligence, rather than Mrs. Fitzosborn’s weakness, with the whole guilt of the consequence, she considered herself as not less culpable than the sister who now implored her compassion and assistance. The call was not in vain—she forgot all her once fancied virtues, in the performance of real duties. Mrs. Fitzosborn was received at the Grove with all the sympathy, and consoled with all the kindness, that even a mother could have felt. But no sympathy could heal the broken heart, or restore a ruined constitution. Mrs. Fitzosborn lived only to bring into the world a daughter; and Miss Pynsynt felt the difference between the reality and the romance of sorrow.

After the first paroxysm of her grief was past, she found, however, in her infant niece, a genuine, and a more allowed source of consolation; and, from this hour, she dedicated all her faculties, and all her affections, to the cultivating and fostering this tender plant. On considering her own past conduct, she found much to reprehend; and, on retracing her errors, she easily discovered the source from whence they had flowed. To guard her young pupil from the illusions of fancy, to fortify her reason, and to moderate her feelings, was therefore her most assiduous care. If it be possible, said she, with a sigh of reflection on her own mistakes and those of her brother, Sir Edward and Lady Pynsynt shall have one descendant worthy of the stock from whence she sprung! What our heroine, in consequence of this resolution, became in the process of time, the progress of this history will show, but, until she has charms that can interest in her favour others besides a maiden aunt, we shall say little of her. It will be sufficient to add in this place, that Miss Pynsynt, from the birth of her niece, made an entire alteration in her mode of life. She sought the neighbours from whom she had before secluded herself; she busied her mind in every research which she thought might be of service to her charge; and she put regularity and economy in the expenditure of a fortune, which she now wished to leave behind her unimpaired. Some years afterwards, the death of a relation made so large an addition to her original property, that she found herself at liberty in some degree to resume the lavish benevolence in which she had before indulged, without too much intrenching on the provision which she had destined for her niece. Although I have spoken of this infant as being wholly given up to her maiden aunt, yet Caroline Fitzosborn was not quite an orphan—she had still a father. We have seen him, in the early part of his life, dissipate not only his own property, but the property of his child. The years, however, in which this dissipation took place, were not, in the eye of a certain part of the world, wholly thrown away. It is true that he had failed in becoming a good lawyer, or even a good member of society; but then he had made himself a man of fashion; that equivocal being, who may possess every estimable quality of the head and heart, and yet to whom not a single perfection of either is essential. Mr. Fitzosborn had taken a middle course: he had a good share of understanding; was not wholly without wit, was tolerably skilled in all gentlemanlike literature, and possessed uncommon readiness in conversation. He was liberal towards himself—courteous towards others; was never out of humour, when he had his own way; or out of spirits, but when he wanted money. To these personal qualifications Mr. Fitzosborn added all the claims to distinction that pedigree could bestow. His family, disdaining to boast of the lineal and unbroken succession which united them with their great ancestor, Sir Hugh Fitzosborn, the favourite knight, companion and friend, of William the Conqueror, fearlessly challenged inquiry into all the unintelligible MSS. of the long destroyed monastic retreats of Normandy; and asserted, that long before the period of the Conquest they would be found, by all who had patience and ability for the search, springing upwards into barons, counts, dukes, and princes, even until they reached the apex of human grandeur, in the person of the emperor himself. In this long succession of ages, it is to be supposed that these high distinctions had differently affected the different possessors of them: the grovelling pride of some, it may be presumed, had rested satisfied with the honours derived from their forefathers, while the more soaring ambition of others had, probably, by their own meritorious deeds, sought to make that personal, which was before only derivative. How many of the one sort, or of the other, which had disgraced or dignified this illustrious family, cannot now be known; but certainly the Mr. Fitzosborn of whom I am now writing, was rather of that humble turn of mind which led him to take pride in what had been done by others, than of that lofty spirit which might have prompted him to earn honour for himself. Of his noble ancestors he thought little, but as they served for a kind of passport into families, whom, though he considered as inferior to him in point of birth, had, however, certain other distinctions and advantages that he was very willing, condescendingly, to share. Nor had he any reason to complain of the neglect either of his personal or derived merits: he was generally well received, and associated with men of the first rank and fortune. As he gave place to no one in point of birth, so he was not unwilling to vie with the richest of his companions in expense. The consequence of this competition, in the earlier part of his life, has been seen; but he had not bought his experience in vain. No sooner did death set him free from the shackles of his first marriage, than he sought to repair the mistake of his youthful choice, by taking a wife whose riches would at least take a longer time in dissipating than the moderate fortune of Louisa Pynsynt had done. In this design he was not long without success. He married; and as money was the only merit that he sought, he had no reason to complain, if it were the only merit that he found.

Disencumbered of the care of his infant daughter, he soon almost lost the remembrance that he had one; and having, by a desperate family arrangement, as he called it, possessed himself of a very considerable sum of money, in addition to the wealth brought him by his wife, he established himself in a large and elegant house, furnished it with all that taste and expense could suggest, hired the first cook, and became known for giving the best dinners: confidently exulting in the wisdom of his plans, and unfeignedly believing that life had no more to give, or the heart of man to desire. His dream of felicity had been a little disturbed by the sources from whence it had proceeded being, in a long succession of good dinners, considerably diminished; and it seemed to vanish wholly from his view, on a summons into Somersetshire, for the purpose of receiving his daughter from the hands of her aunt, who now lay upon her death-bed. He now first recollected, that one of the conditions on which he had obtained the wealthy hand of his present lady, was, that the dreaded step-daughter should never be admitted under his roof; and he had but too much reason to know, that any attempt to infringe this condition would be the destruction of that gentlemanly household quiet on which he piqued himself, and which he had hitherto preserved, by yielding to every wish of the lady, except that of giving her his company. No two people could live more apart than they did; and Mr. Fitzosborn would have preferred any alternative (except death) to the necessity of discussing any single point with the Fury that he called his wife. A habitation for Caroline must, however, be found; and in the dilemma where, he turned his thoughts towards her uncle, Lord Enville, the former Sir George Pynsynt. Mr. Fitzosborn and Lord Enville were in the habits of intimacy; they even called themselves friends: and as Mr. Fitzosborn had no doubt but that Caroline would inherit all that her aunt could bequeath, he did not consider a request, that she might become a member of her uncle’s family, as too great a favour to ask. The proposition met with a most ready acquiescence. Lord Enville, it is true, had seen little, and cared less, for either his sister or his niece, for several years past; nor was he without his jealousy, on the probability that Caroline would engross all the property possessed by his sister: but the proposal of Mr. Fitzosborn, to receive her into his family at so early an age as that to which she had as yet attained, opened to him a prospect of rendering the undue partiality of his sister less injurious to his interests than it might otherwise have been. He therefore scarcely suffered Mr. Fitzosborn to open his difficulties, before he cried out, with the greatest cheerfulness, “Oh, let the girl come to us. She will be no embarrassment whatever at present; and if, in future, Lady Enville should find it too much to chaperon half a dozen young ladies, we will think of some other expedient for your daughter.”

No philosopher, no religionist, could more fully adopt the maxim of leaving the events of to-morrow to provide for themselves, than did Mr. Fitzosborn; to dispose of the present evil was all his care. He therefore thanked Lord Enville very cordially for his so ready reception of his daughter; but, he added, “At present, I believe, she will give more trouble to your governess than to any body else. She is, in fact, scarcely out of the nursery; and, considering how she has been brought up, can hardly be fit for any society. I shall be much obliged to Madame de Tourville if she can form her into a rational creature. I have not seen her these three years: but when I did see her, she was the reverse of every thing I should have chosen a daughter of mine to be; except, indeed, that she promised to be handsome: but your lordship knows, that it would have been cruel to have deprived your sister of her only comfort; and a little polishing will soon rub off the rust.” “Undoubtedly,” returned Lord Enville, who well knew to what to impute his brother-in-law’s tenderness to the feelings of Miss Pynsynt: “and if she is handsome,” added he, “in addition to the sparklers that she will inherit from aunt Beatrice, nothing more will be necessary.” “Oh, my lord,” replied Mr. Fitzosborn, “of those sparklers of which you speak, no doubt but that your daughters will come in for their share, as certainly they ought to do; yet that will be a little hard too, because, with their native charms—(they are charming girls! my lord)—and the accomplishments that you have given them, they will want no such aid to establish them in life; while my poor rustic will scarcely be passable, with all the mines of Golconda for her auxiliaries.” “The world,” said Lord Enville, with a slight bow for the compliment to his daughters, “is not so fastidious: but, after all, our girls must take their chance, and there’s an end of the matter.”

Lord Enville, since the period of Mrs. Fitzosborn’s death, had added two daughters to his family; both, of course, younger than Caroline. Of his sons, one had completed his twentieth, and the other his nineteenth year; while the eldest daughter had scarcely attained seventeen. On his marriage, not only his paternal estate, but also the large possessions that Lady Enville had brought him, had almost wholly been settled upon his eldest son, twenty thousand pounds being all that had been allotted as the provision for younger children; and as there were already four of them, this sum did not promise a very splendid provision to any. Lord Enville’s yearly expenses regularly exceeded the amount of his yearly income, and thus consumed the only part of his property from whence he could have supplied the deficiency which was likely to arise in the provision for his younger children: yet let it not be supposed that Lord Enville was an unkind or a partial parent. The sacrificing the comforts of the subordinate members to the splendour of the head of his family, he genuinely believed—how truly, let those who call things by their right names determine,—to be an imperious duty: but, with this exception, his children equally shared his cares and his affections; in their sports, their habits, their expenses, and school education, there was no difference observed between the boy who, beyond five thousand pounds, was to owe his future subsistence to his own industry, and the one who, without any exertion whatever, was to have annually four times that sum. The hereditary statesman, and the humble expounder of his country’s laws, were alike encouraged in the pride of high birth, and the insolence of superfluous expense. He who was to be isolated from his fellow man by his privileges and his pretensions, and he who was to have no distinction but what he could derive from his talents and his virtues, were equally taught to regard the mass of mankind as beings of an inferior order, and were habituated to pride themselves upon circumstantial rather than inherent qualities. As Lord Enville was not a fool, and as he had no intention to injure his children, we can only account for the error in his calculation, by referring it to his ignorance in the “science of calling things by their right names.” Nor did the mistakes which this ignorance led him into, stop with his sons; his daughters equally profited by so well-judged an impartiality, and a fondness equally discreet. As expectant dutchesses, marchionesses, and countesses, they were indulged in all the fastidiousness of refinement, and all the imbecility of elegance. Lady Enville went a step beyond her lord: what with him was indulgence, with her was system and injunction. To be “lady-like,” was the ultimate end of their education; and in attaining this end, they learnt to be ashamed even of the little power which they possessed of being useful either to themselves or others. Hence their boast was rather of negative than active qualities. They were sure “they could not dress or attend upon themselves.” Every trifling inconvenience was beyond their power of sufferance; and every little difficulty surpassed their means of contest: hence they sometimes sought distinction from a feigned ignorance of what it would have been becoming them to have known, and sometimes by a real extravagance, which it was their disgrace to indulge.

When people are weak themselves, it is necessary to look abroad for support. Lady Enville knew that the whole basis of so much cultivated helplessness, and expensive refinement, was the above-named sum of five thousand pounds; and she was too good an arithmetician not to be sensible how inadequate were the means to the end. In her calculation, therefore, for the future establishment of her daughters, she thought much less of what was certain, than of what was contingent. It was her design to marry them, not according to the number of thousands which they were to receive from their father, but to their rank; and as she had already marked out the several noblemen on whom she designed to bestow the charms and talents of her daughters, she rather regarded in their education the rent-roll of their future husbands, than the humble dower that they could bring with them. It was no difficult matter to instil into the bosoms of these young ladies hopes so flattering to their vanity, or to inspire them with every solicitude which would promote designs so advantageous to their fortune. Hence matrimony, and a splendid establishment, were ideas so connected in their imagination, that they were, in fact, one and indivisible; and hence, every talent that they cultivated, and every accomplishment that they sought, had reference to the rank which they expected, so undoubtingly, to fill. That inconsistency, however, which is the distinguishing mark of selfishness, was not less observable in Lord and Lady Enville, than in their neighbours. Although they could see no reason why the smallness of that portion which they could give their daughters should impede their connexion with the heir of some noble family, they found it absolutely impossible that either of their sons should take the equally portionless sister of that heir in return. That Mr. Pynsynt must marry, was indispensable: how otherwise would the title, so lately attained, and so highly valued, be perpetuated? That he should marry a woman of large fortune was indispensable: he would have his brother and sisters’ fortunes to pay, he would have debts to discharge, he would have a family to provide for: the estate was already scarcely adequate to the honours which it had to support; not one acre could be spared—less than a hundred thousand pounds would do nothing. Charles, indeed, if he were wise, would not think of matrimony at all: if he did, it must be with some one who could bring him thirty thousand pounds at least.

Such were the politics of the present heads of the Enville family. How widely different from those which regulated the conduct, and pointed the solicitudes, of Sir Edward and Lady Pynsynt! But, as Lord Enville would frequently observe, “My father and mother, who were certainly the best people breathing, had a most extraordinary kind of understanding! well adapted, perhaps, for a residence in the country: but, as I have no fancy for either its pleasures or its duties, I must regulate myself by other rules; and, as I live in the world, do like the rest of it.”

In their hopes, and their views for their children, Sir Edward and Lady Pynsynt had been disappointed: Lord and Lady Enville were probably less so. But let us not, therefore, conclude that Lord and Lady Enville were wise, Sir Edward and Lady Pynsynt foolish. In the competition between virtue and vice for the good things of this life, it will commonly be found, that “this world was made for Cæsar:” hence the imperious necessity, if we would be virtuous, to look beyond it—hence the duty of “calling things by their right names.”

Into this high bred and politic family we have now to introduce Caroline Fitzosborn. The death of her aunt, as it was the first sorrow which she had known, so she thought it was the most severe that she could ever know. She had given to her benefactress her first affections; and, with all the enthusiasm of youth, considered her as a perfect being, and loved her rather as a superior intelligence, than as a fellow mortal. The attacks of a violent disease proved, however, the mortality of her friend but too fatally for the peace of Caroline. The symptoms of the disorder were such, as gave the most certain prognostic of her approaching dissolution.—She did not conceal from Caroline what must be the event; but she called upon her to prove, on this first trial, that the cares which had been bestowed upon the cultivation of her reason and her heart, had not been thrown away.

“Let my closing scene convince me,” said she, “that I have not lived in vain. Let me see that I have trained a mortal and dependant being to view death with a steady eye, and to submit with patient resignation to the decrees of its Superior.”

Caroline pressed the hand of her aunt, in token that she would be all that she wished her to be—nor did she overrate her own powers; she continued to attend at the bed-side of Mrs. Pynsynt night and day; the most obedient and adroit assistant to those whose greater experience entitled them to direct her; and the most acute observer and diligent supplier of every wish and want of her dying friend: and this with so solemn and so touching a steadiness of voice and feature, as showed that it was not that she did not feel, but that she knew how to command her feelings.

Mrs. Pynsynt had breathed her last before the arrival of Lord Enville and Mr. Fitzosborn, who both had hastened down on the intelligence of the dangerous indisposition with which she had been attacked. Their hearts beat alike with hope and fear, but not in equal proportions; Lord Enville had more of the latter, and Mr. Fitzosborn of the former: and though each, in apportioning their wants to the means of supplying them, were accustomed to speak of twenties of thousands as trifles; yet, when such a sum as one twenty was supposed to be about to fall to the disposal of one of them, they acknowledged, by their mutual anxiety, all the importance of the prize.

Caroline was called from the death chamber of her friend, to receive her father and uncle. The tears, which, since they could no longer give pain to her benefactress, she had suffered to flow freely, as a relief to her oppressed heart, she wiped from her eyes, lest they should increase the sorrow which she believed that she was going to witness in two persons so nearly connected with the deceased. On entering the room, however, in which they were, she perceived instantly, that her precaution had been unnecessary.

“So, Carry,” said Mr. Fitzosborn, “I find it is all over—we are come too late.” “My poor sister!” said Lord Enville, “I hope she did not suffer much?” Caroline had no voice to reply to the observation of the one, or the question of the other—her heart swelled; and the tears so lately suppressed, again streamed down her face. “Come, don’t cry,” said her father; “your aunt was very good to you, but she was an old woman; this event was to be looked for; we are come to take you away from this dismal place.—Pray—pray—who have you had with you?—is there any man of business in the house?—has——“Yes,” said Lord Enville, “do you know whether my sister has left any will?”

Caroline stood aghast.—“Mr. Somers, I believe, is in the house,” replied she.—“I thought I could know nothing of such things. Dr. C—— was very good to me, and he told me that he and Mr. Somers would take care that every thing was done that was proper.” “Who is this Mr. Somers?” said Lord Enville. “My aunt’s executor, I believe,” replied Caroline.—“Oh! then there is a will?” said Mr. Fitzosborn. “Mr. Somers can inform you of every thing,” returned Caroline. “Shall I desire him to come in?” “Pray do,” cried both the gentlemen in a breath; “and Caroline,” added Mr. Fitzosborn, “prepare to leave this place to-morrow. Lord Enville and myself may find it necessary to remain here some time; but you can have nothing more to do, and had better proceed towards town in the morning.” “Not, I hope, till after the funeral,” said Caroline. “What have you to do with the funeral?” said her father. “I am sure the sooner you are gone the better, your eyes are swelled out of your head, and you have lost all your colour.” Caroline withdrew; and having desired Mr. Somers to attend the gentlemen, sat down to wonder, and to grieve, at what appeared to her so strange and so sad. The curiosity of the two gentlemen was soon fully gratified, but neither the wishes of the one nor the other fulfilled.

Mrs. Pynsynt had given the whole of her property to her niece, excepting some few trifling legacies to her friends and servants; and she had given her the full and entire power over this property on her attaining the age of eighteen; appointing as her executor, and trustee for her niece, Mr. Somers, a gentleman in the neighbourhood; without mentioning either Lord Enville or Mr. Fitzosborn in the will, except by signifying, that as the former and his family were already so amply provided for, she concluded that he would not consider the disposal that she had made of her property, in favour of her portionless niece, as arising from unkindness, or as an undue distinction from others who stood in the same degree of relationship to her. Lord Enville, though he had feared that Caroline would have the largest share of her aunt’s possessions, was not prepared for so exclusive a preference in her favour: and Mr. Fitzosborn, though sufficiently pleased that his daughter was sole heiress, felt extremely disappointed in having no right to interfere in the regulation of her money concerns. Lord Enville betrayed his chagrin by muttering, “Amply provided for indeed!—What could an old woman know of what is an ample provision for young people in these days? or the necessary expenses of a man of the world?” And Mr. Fitzosborn no less betrayed what his wishes were, by saying, “Strange! that so conscientious a lady as your sister, my lord, should think any one so proper to take care of a girl’s interest as her father! But these old maids are always for depreciating the rights of fathers and husbands.” “Surely you do not complain?” returned Lord Enville. “Complain! no, my lord; I think I have said nothing like it: not that I shall benefit one farthing by this extraordinary will. I know this gentleman executor pretty well. You must have observed that he is one of those over-righteous people, who adhere to the letter of their duty, without once regarding its spirit. I dare say I might go to jail before he would advance one penny of what he would call my daughter’s property.”—“And I should consider him as being perfectly right in so doing,” returned Lord Enville, drily. “And do you consider your sister as perfectly right,” retorted Mr. Fitzosborn, “in having given the reins entirely into the hands of a girl of eighteen? What a preposterous notion, thus to antedate the period of supposed discretion to one who is of a sex which never arrives at discretion at all!” “Then the act of antedating is of little consequence,” replied Lord Enville. “My lord, my lord,” said Mr. Fitzosborn, warmly, “the girl whose interests you seem so careless about, is your niece, as much as my daughter. What will you say when, at eighteen, she runs away with the first needy adventurer who has presumption enough to ask her to do so?” “I say it is an event that will never happen,” returned Lord Enville; “Lady Enville will take better care of her.” And, indeed, Lord Enville had already determined upon the course that would restore his sister’s coveted thousands to his own family; which, though a little more circuitous than he could have wished, he did not consider as apocryphal.

The conversation was here interrupted by the return “of the gentleman executor,” who had left the room for a moment, after having finished reading the will. He addressed himself to Mr. Fitzosborn. “I consider it, sir, as necessary that Miss Fitzosborn should be present at the breaking of the seals which were affixed before my arrival: but as this is not necessary to be done before the funeral, I hope there will be no objection to the young lady remaining in this house till that ceremony is over. This she is greatly desirous of doing; and it would be very distressing to her at this time to look over Mrs. Pynsynt’s personal effects, and to attend to the information which she ought to receive.” “You would not talk of such things to a child!” said Mr. Fitzosborn. “My daughter must begin her journey to town to-morrow; but surely the business you talk of may be transacted as well in her absence as if she were here. I will attend you on the breaking of the seals, an inventory of all may be taken, and I will be accountable to my daughter.” “Pardon me, sir,” replied Mr. Somers, “I am alone accountable to Miss Fitzosborn; and I am desirous that the trust which has been committed to me, shall be not only faithfully, but literally performed.” “My daughter cannot remain in this dismal place any longer,” returned Mr. Fitzosborn; “she is losing her spirits, she is losing her health.” “If it is so necessary that Miss Fitzosborn should be removed immediately,” said Mr. Somers, “she will, I dare say, so far conquer her feelings, as to do to night all that is desirable to be done; and, with your permission, I will now wait upon her for the purpose.”

This rigid observer of forms well knew Mr. Fitzosborn’s character, his conduct during the life of his first wife, and the whole of the reasons that had induced Mrs. Pynsynt to exclude him from any interference in the money concerns of his daughter; and, as his understanding was of that limited nature that did not enable him to discover the meaning of the words “righteous over-much,” his rule for conduct was, to do all that he knew or believed to be right; and he was perfectly persuaded that it was right to keep Mr. Fitzosborn as distant as possible from the property of his daughter.

Caroline, although shrinking from the task that was proposed to her, was easily prevailed with to do that which she was told was proper to be done; and what would enable her, with whatever sacrifice on her part, to oblige her father in the point of her speedy removal. The business lay in a small compass, and was soon despatched. Caroline was put into possession of all the documents which would enable her to understand her rights, when she should be at leisure to attend to them; and the harder task of taking a last view of the lifeless body of her beloved friend being performed, she accompanied her father and uncle into their carriage, and, with a heart half broken, bade adieu to all that she had, as yet, ever loved, and to the scenes of past pleasures which she thought no future ones could rival. Her cousins were prepared to receive her as a creature of another world; awkward, rustic, and uninformed: and though she derived some merit, in their eyes, from the amount of the thousands which they had now learnt had centered wholly in her, yet they considered them as the costly setting of a worthless pebble; and thought how much better their own graces and accomplishments deserved, and would have adorned, such an accompaniment. They were, therefore, a little startled, when, upon Lord Enville presenting Caroline to his family, they found the clumsy country cousin which they had imaged to themselves, an elegant formed girl, tall of her age, and graceful in her movements, with an intelligent countenance, and features, which, if not critically handsome, formed a whole which every eye must acknowledge as beauty. Her cheek was, however, now pale; and her eyes, where at present no gaiety sparkled, were too frequently bent to the ground. Here, indeed, her cousins had much reason to congratulate themselves on their superiority; for, instead of the unembarrassed air with which they were conscious that they should have presented themselves, they saw Caroline blush and tremble, as Lord Enville presented her first to one, and then to the other of her unknown relations. Lady Enville, observing on her confusion, said, encouragingly, “But this is wholly to be imputed to the fault of education; I dare say, Caroline, we shall soon be able to make you more like the rest of the world.” But it was not by bashfulness alone that Caroline drew on herself the contempt of her cousins. As the superiority of her fortune was never a moment out of their minds, so they concluded that it was never out of her’s; and they were not unprepared to pay her all the deference which they had so well learnt to be due to wealth. But when these pupils of fashion and fastidiousness observed the modest reluctance that Caroline manifested to give trouble; her indifference with respect to food and accommodation; the simplicity of her taste, and her frank and genuine satisfaction in all the pleasures suited to her age, they regarded her as the most rustic and undistinguishing of mortals. “I do assure you, mamma,” said the youngest of these well educated ladies, “Caroline has been so strangely brought up, that she does not care whether the eggs are new laid or not, and is not afraid to eat them when they are old. Dear, how strong her digestion must be!”

Miss Pynsynt was, however, more tolerant than her sisters; and she had not known Caroline a week, before she told Lady Enville, that she did not despair of the poor girl: “For, indeed, mamma, she is not quite unladylike; and when she has been with us a little longer, I dare say she will succeed very well.” Caroline was not, however, a very apt scholar in the lessons that her cousins sought to teach her. At first astonished, and then amused by the helplessness of her companions, she thought of nothing so little as imitating them. She had been accustomed to be praised for her activity, her diligence, the due regulation of her expenses, and the exactness with which she performed all that was intrusted to her; nor could she view lassitude, indolence, forgetfulness, and inattention, otherwise than as objects of reprehension or ridicule. Her youth, and her natural disposition, led her more to laugh than to reprove; and her cousins found themselves rather engaged in repelling her raillery, than in rectifying her opinions. In all these little disputations, she found a never-failing advocate in her cousin Charles; who, though he was not a whit behind any of his family in his pretensions to all that constitutes a man of the ton, for some reasons, either of his own or his father’s, was willing to conciliate the good opinion of Caroline, and to uphold, at least in theory, the maxims of prudence, regularity, and moderation. Caroline, on her side, now first, under the form of an uncommonly handsome youth of twenty, began to be sensible to the charms attendant on highly polished manners, and to awaken to the delight that gay and refined conversation can bestow, and, in consequence, repaid the attentions of Charles by a partiality that seemed to secure to Lord Enville all that his heart could wish with respect to the at present alienated property of his sister.

On Caroline’s removal to London, she first became known to some branches of her father’s family, which she had hitherto never seen, and of some of whom she had scarcely ever heard.

Mr. Fitzosborn had had two brothers. The eldest had never married. His youth had been spent in a state of constant indisposition, which having taken from him both the power and the inclination of mixing with the world, had occasioned him to remain almost wholly in the country. His pleasures were planting and gardening; and looking up “through Nature, unto Nature’s God,” his mind had become imbued with the strongest religious principles. He had applied all the energy of a vigorous understanding to the investigation of the evidence of the Christian religion; and, in consequence, he considered its truth as little less than demonstrable. What he believed to be true, he did not suffer to be inoperative; and every action and every thought was, with him, referred to a gospel rule. As he associated little with his fellow men, the affections of his heart had never been called into action; and having, in his own mind, a high standard of right, he thought there was scarcely a human creature deserving of his love. He had found it easy to himself to avoid all wandering into forbidden paths; and he therefore concluded all who thus went astray to be such volunteers in vice, as left them without excuse. “The Seer of hearts,” would he say, “may balance the temptation with the crime; parblind man can judge only by the outward act: if the mark is in the forehead, it is reasonable to conclude that the murder has been committed.” With him, one established failure in the path of rectitude fixed the character as vitious; and with vice he would hold no communion: for the anomaly of the human mind he knew not to make any allowance; and with a heart naturally disposed to kindness, no one appeared to be less kind.

Caroline’s father has been induced, in a moment of extreme pecuniary pressure, in consideration of an ample temporary supply, to join with Mr. Fitzosborn in cutting off the entail of the family estate; and, from this hour, the elder brother had considered the younger as no better than another Esau. He had ceased to have any intercourse with him; nor would he suffer his name to be mentioned before him. “He has sold his birth-right,” said he, “and is no brother of mine.”

The power, however, that he had thus gained of disposing of his property, he had used liberally towards most of the other younger branches of his family; rather, however, as the head of his house, than as an affectionate relation who rejoices in the participation of good. He had portioned his sisters bountifully, and established them in the world; but to his youngest brother he dealt out his kindness with a more sparing hand. The young man had married imprudently: and Mr. Fitzosborn observed, that as he had gratified his passions at the expense of his duty, it was right that he should have an opportunity of feeling the consequence of such an election. The wife he would not see; objecting to her, that a woman who overlooks prudence in a matrimonial connexion, must be a slave to the worst propensities: and when the early death of his brother left her a widow with four children, with little to subsist on, he relaxed from his rigid rule of right no farther than to allot to her and her daughters a scanty provision, and to assign them a small house, in a distant county, as their residence. The boy he put to school, and gave him such an education as would enable him to follow the law; but without any distinction that seemed to point him out as his future heir: on the contrary, he publickly declared that he would have no regard to blood or name in his choice of an heir, but that he would alone be determined by the worthiness of the individual. “The family which has not worth to stand upon, had better fall to the ground,” said he. From such declarations, and from the whole tenor of his life, he was considered so much of a humourist, that no one durst promise themselves that his ample possessions would not become the property of the most artful of those who were allowed to approach him. For some years past he had nearly shut himself up from all society, his servants, and people on business, being the only persons who in general were admitted to see him. The world was, however, much mistaken in the character of Mr. Fitzosborn. Humourist as he was supposed to be, no one in fact could be less so; his will was ever dependent upon his principles: and if there appeared any irregularity in the course of his virtue, it was not that he ever disregarded the right line, but that he mistook it: nor, secluded as he appeared to be, and regardless of all that passed beyond the confines of his own domain, could there be a more observant or a more sagacious overlooker of all that passed amongst his expectant relations, than Mr. Fitzosborn. He knew the characters of each, and how to appreciate and balance the different merits and claims of the contending candidates for his favour.

The mistakes of Mr. Fitzosborn arose not from any deficiency of heart; they arose only from a false nomenclature. “Severity of punishment,” he called “vindicating the cause of virtue:” the “fallibility of human nature,” he called “vice;” and “misanthropy,” he called “sitting loose to the world.”

Of Caroline, Mr. Fitzosborn had scarcely ever heard; and it is probable, if Mrs. Pynsynt had lived, she would never have engaged his notice. Lord Enville, however, knew what he called the world much better than his sister had done; and as he had already, in hope, converted the fortune that she had left Caroline to the uses of his own family, he was not willing to be so wanting to himself, as to neglect any means which he thought likely to dispose of the possessions of Mr. Fitzosborn in the same manner. There was indeed, some difficulty in introducing Caroline to her uncle’s notice; but the prize was a tempting one, and well worthy of some vigorous efforts to secure it; nor was Lord Enville a man to be easily turned aside from the path of interest. He believed, that if Caroline could once enter the doors of Henhurst, the work was done; so much did he rely upon the charms of ingenuous youth; and so powerful towards the conciliation of favour did one of the most artful of men feel the influence of artlessness to be. This step, however, upon which all was to depend, Lord Enville found it impossible to make. Amongst the numerous family connexions to which Caroline had been introduced since her arrival in town, there was but one who was willing, had they been able, to have introduced her at Henhurst. They most of them hoped that her name would never reach the ear of Mr. Fitzosborn; and while they continued to show her every polite attention themselves, represented the impossibility there was of making her known to her uncle. There was, indeed, one exception to this general fear of a rival, and this exception was Edward Fitzosborn, the fatherless boy of the indiscreet brother of Mr. Fitzosborn, who was now expiating by a laborious profession, little cheered by the bounty of his uncle, the mistakes of his father.

Edward Fitzosborn had now had chambers in Lincoln’s-Inn about two years. From being the intimate friend of Charles Pynsynt, he was in the habits of the most perfect familiarity in Lord Enville’s family. As the possible heir of Henhurst, this young man had not been thought wholly unworthy of Lady Enville’s attention; as furnishing, at least, a resource for the disposal of one of her daughters; but, on the introduction of Caroline into her house, she had fully agreed with her lord, that the interests of the family would be better provided for by securing to her Mr. Fitzosborn’s estate, and marrying her to one of their sons, than by an union of Mr. Edward Fitzosborn with their daughter Charlotte. She was the more readily led into this conclusion from there being nothing in the character of Edward that constituted, in the opinion of Lady Enville, the excellence of man. It is true that he had the reputation of acute sense, and of much information; of industry in his studies, of moderation in his pleasures, and of unimpeached rectitude. He was already considered as being an ornament to his profession: and the grave, the wise, and the good, spoke of Edward Fitzosborn with approbation: but the grave, the wise, and the good, were neither the oracles nor the associates of Lady Enville. She thought it ridiculous in a young man to decline a late engagement because his duty awaited him at an early hour in the morning; and mean-spirited to limit his expenses by the power he had of paying his debts. The young ladies had, indeed, a more favourable opinion of him; for while they candidly confessed that he had “some strange notions,” they contended that nobody made prettier verses, or looked more like a gentleman; and Charles Pynsynt summed up the whole by saying, “that Edward Fitzosborn was the worthiest creature breathing.”

How much of each of these opinions Caroline combined in that which she formed of her cousin, may be seen hereafter. At present she gave no sign of favour towards him, farther than sometimes withdrawing her attention from the rattle of Charles, to listen to the arguments of Edward, and sometimes making him the compliment of giving up her opinion to his. On his part, he rather seemed to regard her as a younger sister, to whom his protection was due, than either as a rival in the competition for his uncle’s estate, or as a lovely female growing into charms that might make his happiness dependent on her will. “How I wish my uncle could know Caroline!” would he sometimes say. “He thinks but indifferently of the rest of us, but he would be puzzled to find fault with her; she would put his misanthropy to a nonplus.” Time, however, passed on; and neither the good-natured disinterestedness of Edward, nor the more politic endeavours of Lord Enville, had advanced Caroline one step in the knowledge of the elder Mr. Fitzosborn: and so hopeless did Lord Enville consider her chance of becoming the heiress of Henhurst, that he entirely gave up the idea of uniting her with his eldest son, and began to turn all his thoughts to the accomplishing her union with Charles.

Accident, however, did that for Lord Enville which all his management had failed to accomplish. The female servant who had attended upon Caroline from her birth, had accompanied her on her removal to London, and had remained with her for more than two years. At the end of this period, finding her health decline, she resolved to return to her native place, and to pass the remainder of her life amongst her relations. This native place was a village scarcely a mile distant from Henhurst; and the relation with whom Mrs. Hanbrooke had taken up her residence was one of the principal tenants of Mr. Fitzosborn. Caroline, who entertained an almost filial regard for this old servant, had continued to correspond frequently with her; and learning that she grew daily into worse health, she was resolved to visit her.