vey to Marchmont the pecuniary help fhe wifhed to engage him to accept.

Everfley!" repeated Marchmont, with quickness-" No-that cannot be. Eversley is an excellent man. I owe him a thousand obligations, but they have coft him too dear. I know how much uneafinefs I have been the occasion of, and nothing on earth should induce me to repeat it-Befides, there are other reasons My friend is affluent indeed, but I do not envy him: Poor fellow! he is rather an object of pity. Deftitute as I am, the fate of Eversley excites my compaffion. He does not know, for I had many reafons for my concealment, where I now

am."

Althea was on the point of betraying herself, by faying that fhe heard he was in Ireland from Linda Eversley. But recollecting herself, fhe continued filent. Marchmont renewed the converfation.

verfation. He even forced a languid

fmile as he faid—

“And suppose that the inveterate malignity of thefe men, who, like Shylock, infift upon their bond, which they know I cannot pay-fuppofe it urges them to the greatest extremities? I am of a race, of which many members have been imprisoned, though not indeed for quite the fame caufe. You recollect, perhaps, a beautiful little piece of poetry*, written

by

In Wood's Athenæ, page 228, Vol. II. may be feen at large the affecting story of this elegant writer, who, having been distinguished for every gallant and polite accomplishment, the pattern of his own fex, and the darling of the ladies, died in the lowest obscurity, wretchedness, and want, in 1658.-Part of the Song follows:

"When Love with unconfined wings

Hovers within my gates,

And my divine Althea brings

To whisper at my grates;

When

by a Colonel Richard Lovelace, who was imprisoned in the Gate-house at Westminster for adherence to his unhappy master. He was the brother of my father's grandmother. He died in great obfcurity, and poverty. My fate and his may probably in many inftances be alike."

Althea inftantly recollected the lines, and the name of Althea, by which the unfortunate Lovelace celebrates his miftrefs; a coincidence which ftruck her with a thousand indefcribable fenfations;

When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fetter'd with her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no fuch liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take

That for an hermitage:

If I have freedom in my love,
And in my foul am free,

Angels alone that foar above

Enjoy fuch liberty."

though

though it was, fhe thought, poffible that it was not on account of that coincidence brought forward by Marchmont. She felt, however, her cheeks dyed with blufhes; and to conceal her confufion fhe paffed lightly over the anfwer, and recurred again to Mr. Eversley.

"Since you are fo good," faid fhe,

as to allow me to take an interest in a fituation which even thofe who have not the pleasure of knowing you mustlament, fuffer me to confult with Mr. Eversley. I am no ftranger to the reftraint he labours under from the unhappy temper and narrow prejudices of his wife; but by means of his filter I am fure we may correfpond on the poffibility of ferving you, without rendering him liable to her ill-humour."

"I cannot exprefs, Mifs Dacres," interrupted Marchmont, "how much I feel your goodness; but there are objections-invincible, unconquerable objections. . . . . . It is impoffible," added

he,

he, "to trouble you with them: but be affured, that if I had any thing to hope from his friendship, without committing my friend, I would not hefitate :—as it is, I must take my refolution, and already I feel that I ought not to have given you the concern I have done. I am conscious that I have acted wrong-and yet, perhaps, if I dared relate at length the circumftances that have led me into this, the narrative might, to fuch a mind as yours, plead my apology."

"None is neceffary, Sir," faid Althea in a low voice; "I beg you will not think of me, unless it be how I can render you any fervice in regard to your prefent difficulties. I am very much afraid, from the detention of your fervant, that they may multiply around you; and I own, my horror of the man they call Vampyre is fuch, that nothing would give me more pain than that he fhould make another visit here more fuccefsful than the laft.”

"For