Matson for their goodness in obtaining for me the delightful situation I now held.

Poor Patty was overjoyed at seeing me so well and so happy, and assured me that her present master and mistress were not only the kindest in the "whole world," but that they evidently respected her very much on account of her "royal descent."

"Indeed," added she, "my good mistress takes every opportunity of mentioning it to her guests, and if she has any very particular friends with her, she makes me come up stairs, and give them the whole account of my extraction."

Had it not been for leaving my few kind. friends, I should have been glad when the time arrived to return to Twickenham, so fond had I become of the sweet villa and its delightful gardens. I had the latter, indeed, almost entirely to myself.

Mr. Willoughby returned to Cambridge, and did not come back again till Easter, when he staid three weeks.

Soon after he left Twickenham, poor Mrs. Pratt became so ill, that we almost despaired of

her life, and Lady Frances was in the greatest distress in consequence.

At length Providence was pleased to restore this excellent woman, whose recovery gave great joy, not only to her kind lady and to me, but to the whole household; by whom she was much, and justly, beloved and respected.

When she was able to travel, it was determined by Lady Frances to go to the sea-side for a few weeks, that her faithful attendant might have the benefit of change of air.

Accordingly we started for Hastings on the second of May, and reached it the same night. Lady Frances much wished her nephew to join her there, but he wrote to say, that he was unable to leave Cambridge till the middle of June.

Mrs. Pratt hourly regained strength, but her lady would not suffer her to exert herself, therefore the entire duty, I should rather say pleasure, of waiting upon Lady Frances devolved upon me.

She was so good as to take me often with

her and Mrs. Pratt in her drives about this very pleasant place, and nothing could exceed her kindness and indulgence.

I was, indeed, as happy as it was possible for a young creature to be, who had not a relation upon the face of the earth.

While we were at Hastings, a circumstance occurred which gave rise to so much speculation and conversation among the few families of rank then sojourning there, that I may as well now detail what I remember of it.

CHAPTER X.

"Romeo. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow, That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops-" “Juliet. O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant

moon,

That monthly changes in her circled orb,

Lest that thy love prove likewise variable."

SHAKSPEARE.

THE Earl and Countess of Brokenhurst had been residing for some weeks at Hastings with their only son the Viscount Boscobel.

He had just entered his twentieth year, was accomplished, kind-hearted, gentlemanly, and handsome, but never having been either at a public school or at a university, he was deficient in that ease of manner and self-possession which usually accompanies young men who have been thus educated.

He had never left the paternal roof, or ra

ther had left it only in the

and mother and his tutor.

society of his father They had travelled

with him all over England and Wales, Ireland and Scotland, but his father, the earl, who was himself only forty-three, could never be induced to take him to the continent.

Various reasons had been surmised as to the motives of the earl and countess for keeping their son, at his age, under such restraint, for it was observed that he never went anywhere without one or other of his parents; his tutor being of course now dismissed.

A rumour went abroad that the cause of this seclusion had its rise from a circumstance that occurred to the earl himself, when about eighteen years of age.

At any rate, the Lady Lavinia Longcroft, a gossiping old maid who resided at Hastings, gave the following account to Lady Frances, and Mrs. Pratt retailed it to me.

The present earl, when Viscount Boscobel, being then about eighteen years of age, was