she pressed his hand affectionately, and drew away her weeping daughter from the young lord, who held one of her hands in his own.

It was in vain he conjured her to stop; Mrs. Cookson called a carriage which was passing, and getting into it with her daughter, they were out of sight in a moment.

Lord Boscobel threw himself on the bank, and gave way to the emotions which almost choked him.

He was not aware till this moment how very dear the gentle Frederica was to him; and to give her and her kind mother up without a struggle, was not to be thought of. He did not then know what it was to argue with a determined parent.

The Earl of Brokenhurst, upon his return to Hastings, was petrified at finding that all his precautions had been in vain, and that his only child had been (as he termed it) entrapped into an intimate acquaintance with two unknown and artful women.

He had a long, and for the first time in

his life, angry conversation with his son, and ended by insisting upon his holding no further communication with them.

The poor young viscount urged in vain his distress at thus rudely and suddenly breaking off with this amiable mother and daughter.

His father would listen neither to entreaties nor expostulations, and treated both with sovereign contempt, and at length dismissed his son with these few words, "You have either seen them or me for the last time."

Lord Boscobel hastened to his mother, but she was equally prejudiced as his father, though

not so violent.

She invited him to take a drive with her into the country to give the earl time to calm his angry feelings, while she wasted her breath in endeavouring to persuade her disconsolate son to take the same view of the characters of his new friends as she had done.

As soon as the carriage of the countess had driven from the door, the earl resolved to pay a visit to the detested women who had entan

gled his unfortunate son, to remonstrate with them upon keeping up any intercourse with him contrary to the wishes of his family, and, if he found them, as he expected, artful adventuresses, to frighten them into compliance.

He accordingly lost no time in proceeding to Mrs. Cookson's lodgings, having procured her address from his son.

They were in a third rate situation, which plainly showed the humble station of the party he was seeking; and as he proceeded hastily along, he felt not a little humbled at the idea of being seen visiting in such a locality.

In his eagerness to get rid of what he considered a disgraceful connexion, and in his anger at the pertinacity of his son, he forgot how much more trouble and anxiety he had himself given, on the very same subject, to his own father and mother, and how much more obstinacy he had displayed, when called upon to give up an object whom he fancied he loved, than his obedient son had done.

When he saw the misery of that unoffending young man, it is strange that the thought

of what he himself had suffered at his age did not cross his mind, and that while he had thought his father the most unfeeling of men, he should quite forget that he was himself now acting the very part which in his youth he had so much condemned. The only thought, however, that really crossed the earl's mind, as he hurried along, was, how he could best put a stop to a connexion of which he so much disapproved.

Having reached the door of Mrs. Cookson's lodging, his knock was answered by the landlady, who informed him that the ladies were gone out for a walk, but would be in in about an hour.

As the earl was moving off with a disappointed look, the woman asked if he would please to leave his name.

"No, it is of no consequence, I will call again."

Lord Brokenhurst was compelled to control his anger for another hour, while he wandered about in restless anxiety.

The time being expired, he returned to

Place, and was this time received by the servant, a raw country girl, who did not appear to know the names of the different lodgers, but seeing the "gentleman" impatient, thought one might do as well as another, therefore opening the parlour door, and seeing no one there, she took him immediately upstairs to the drawing-room, where, seated at work with her back towards him, was a lady.

When the awkward servant, who had banged the door after her, had disappeared, first saying, "A gentleman, miss," the earl in his agitation had forgotten the possibility of being ushered into the presence of a different person from the one he wished to see; he therefore advanced to apologize for his intrusion, as the lady, rising from her seat, turned round at the sound of the closing door.

Had an apparition met the eyes of Earl Brokenhurst he could not have been more confounded, or started more aghast than he did, at the sight of the vision now before him.

The lady also turned exceedingly pale, and trembling violently, was obliged to reseat