CHAP. I.

Some account of the Persons of whom Sir Thomas Sindall's Family consisted.

THE Baronet's family consisted, at this time, of his aunt, and the young lady mentioned in the Introduction, together with a cousin of his, of the name of Bolton, who was considered as presumptive heir of the Sindall estate, and whose education had been superintended by Sir Thomas. This young gentleman had lately returned from the university, to which his kinsman had sent him. The expectations of his acquaintance were, as is usually the case, sanguine in his favour; and, what is something less usual, they were not disappointed. Beside the stock of learning, which his studies had acquired him, he possessed an elegance of manner, and a winning softness of deportment, which a college life does not often bestow, but proceeded in him from a cause the least variable of any, a disposition instinctively benevolent, and an exquisite sensibility of heart.

With all his virtues, however, he was a dependant on Sir Thomas Sindall; and their exercise could only be indulged so far as his cousin gave them leave. Bolton's father, who had married a daughter of the Sindall family, had a considerable patrimony left him by a parent, who had acquired it in the sure and common course of mercantile application. With this, and the dowry he received with his wife, he might have lived up to the limits of his utmost wish, if he had confined his wishes to what are commonly considered the blessings of life; but, though he was not extravagant to spend, he was ruined by an avidity to gain. In short, he was

of that order of men, who are known by the name of projectors; and wasted the means of present enjoyment, in the pursuit of luxury to come. To himself indeed the loss was but small; while his substance was mouldering away by degrees, its value was annihilated in his expectations of the future; and he died amidst the horrors of a prison, smiling at the prospect of ideal wealth and visionary grandeur.

But with his family it was otherwise; his wife, who had often vainly endeavoured to prevent, by her advice, the destructive schemes of her husband, at last tamely yielded to her fate, and died soon after him of a broken heart, leaving an only son, the Bolton who is now introduced into my story.

The distresses of his father had been always ridiculed by Sir Thomas Sindall, as proceeding from a degree of whim and madness, which it would have been a weakness to pity; his aunt, Mrs Selwyn, joined in the sentiment; perhaps it was really her own: but at any rate she was apt to agree in opinion with her nephew Sir Thomas, and never had much regard for her sister Bolton, for some reasons no less just than common. In the first place, her sister was handsomer than she; secondly, she was sooner married; and, thirdly, she had been blessed with this promising boy, while Mrs Selwyn became a widow, without having had a child.

There appeared then but little prospect of protection to poor Bolton from this quarter; but, as he had no other relation in any degree of propinquity, a regard to decency prompted the Baronet to admit the boy into his house. His situation, indeed, was none of the most agreeable; but the happy dispositions which nature had given him, suited themselves to the harshness of his fortune; and, in whatever society he was placed, he found

himself surrounded with friends: there was not a servant in the house, who would not risk the displeasure of their master, or Mrs Selwyn, to do some forbidden act of kindness to their little favourite, Harry Bolton.

Sir Thomas himself, from some concurring accidents, had his notice attracted by the good qualities of the boy; his indifference was conquered by degrees, and at last he began to take upon himself the charge of rearing him to manhood. There wanted only this to fix his attachment; benefits to those whom we set apart for our own management and assistance, have something so particular in their nature, that there is scarce a selfish passion which their exercise does not gratify. Yet I mean not to rob Sindall of the honour of his beneficence; it shall no more want my praise, than it did the gratitude of Bolton.

CHAP. II.

Some farther particulars of the Persons mention

ed in the foregoing Chapter.

BOLTON, however, felt that uneasiness which will ever press upon an ingenuous mind along with the idea of dependence; he had therefore frequently hinted, though in terms of the utmost modesty, a desire to be put into some way of life, that might give him an opportunity of launching forth into the world, and freeing his cousin from the incumbrance of a useless idler in his family.

Sir Thomas had often made promises of indulging so laudable a desire; but day after day elapsed without his putting any of them in execution; the truth was, that he had contracted a sort of paternal affection for Bolton, and found it a difficult matter to bring himself to the resolution of parting with him.

He contented himself with employing the young man's genius and activity in the direction and superintendence of his country affairs; he consulted him on plans for improving his estate, and intrusted him with the care of their execution he associated him with himself in matters of difficult discussion as a magistrate; and in the sports of the field, he was his constant companion.

It was a long time before Mrs Selwyn, from some of the reasons I have hinted, could look on Harry with a favourable eye. When Sir Thomas first began to take notice of him, she remonstrated the danger of spoiling boys by indulgence, and endeavoured to counterbalance the estimation of his good qualities, by the recital of little tales which she now and then picked up against him.

It was not till some time after his return from the university, that Harry began to gain ground in the lady's esteem. That attachment

and deference to the softer sex, which, at a cer tain age, is habitual to ours, is reckoned effe minacy amongst boys, and fixes a stain upon their manhood. Before he went to the university, Harry was under this predicament; but, by the time of his return, he had attained the period of refinement, and shewed his aunt all those trifling civilities, which it is the prerogative of the ladies to receive; and which Mrs Selwyn was often more ready to demand, than some males of her acquaintance were to pay. In truth, it required a knowledge of many feminine qualities, which this lady doubtless possessed, to impress the mind with an idea of that courtesy which is due to the sex; for her countenance was not expressive of much softness, the natu ral strength of her features being commonly heightened by the assistance of snuff, and her conversation generally turning on points of controversy in religion and philosophy, which, requiring an intense exertion of thought, are therefore, I presume, from the practice of the fair in general, no way favourable to the preservation or the improvement of beauty.

It was, perhaps, from this very inclination for investigating truth, that Bolton drew an advantage in his approaches towards her esteem. As he was just returned from the seat of learning, where discussions of that sort are common, she naturally applied to him for assistance in her researches: by assistance, I mean opposition; it being the quality of that desire after knowledge with which this lady was endued, to delight in nothing so much, as in having its own doctrines confronted with opposite ones, till they pommel, and belabour one another without mercy; the contest having one advantage peculiar to battles of this kind, that each party, far from being weakened by its exertion, commonly ap pears to have gained strength, as well as honour, from the rencounter.

Bolton indeed did not possess quite so much of this quality as his antagonist: he could not, in common good-breeding, refuse her challenge; but he often maintained the conflict in a manner rather dastardly for a philosopher. He gave, however, full audience to the lady's arguments; and if he sometimes shewed an unwillingness to reply, she considered it as a testimony of her power to silence. But she was generous in her victories: whenever she conceived them com. pletely obtained, she celebrated the prowess of her adversary, and allowed him all that wisdom which retreats from the fortress it cannot defend.

There was, perhaps, another reason, as forci ble as that of obliging Mrs Selwyn, or attaining the recondite principles of philosophy, which increased Bolton's willingness to indulge that lady in becoming a party to her disquisitions. There was a spectatress of the combat, whose com pany might have been purchased at the expence of sitting to hear Aquinas himself dispute upon

theology-Miss Lucy Sindall. My readers have been acquainted, in the Introduction, with my prepossession in her favour, and the character Mrs Wistanly gave in justification of it. They were deceived by neither.

With remarkable quickness of parts, and the liveliest temper, she possessed all that tenderness which is the chief ornament of the female character; and, with a modesty that seemed to shrink from observation, she united an ease and a dignity, that universally commanded it. Her vivacity only rose to be amiable; no enemy could ever repeat her wit, and she had no friend who did not boast of her good-humour.

I should first have described her person: my readers will excuse it; it is not of such minds that I am most solicitous to observe the dwellings: I have hinted before, and I repeat it, that her's was such a one, as no mind need be ashamed of.

Such was the attendant of Mrs Selwyn, whose company the good lady particularly required at those seasons, when she unveiled her knowledge in argument, or pointed her sagacity to instruction. She would often employ Bolton and Miss Lucy to read her certain select passages of books, when a weakness in her own sight made reading uneasy to her the subjects were rarely of the entertaining kind, yet Harry never complained of their length. This she attributed to his opinion of their usefulness; Lucy called it goodnature. He thought so himself at first; but he soon began to discover, that it proceeded from some different cause; for when Miss Lucy was, by any accident, away, he read with very little complacency. He never suspected it to be love: much less did Lucy; they owned each other for friends; and when Mrs Selwyn used to call them children, Bolton would call Lucy sister; yet he was often not displeased to remember, that she was not his sister indeed.

CHAP. III.

A Natural consequence of some particulars contained in the last.

THE state of the mind may be often disguised, even from the owner, when he means to inquire into it; but a very trifle will throw it from its guard, and betray its situation, when a formal examination has failed to discover it.

Bolton would often catch himself sighing when Miss Sindall was absent, and feel his cheeks glow at her approach; he wondered what it was that made him sigh and blush.

He would sometimes take solitary walks, without knowing why he wandered out alone: he found something that pleased him, in the melancholy of lonely recesses, and half-worn paths, and his day-dreams commonly ended in some

idea of Miss Sindall, though he meant nothing less than to think of such an object.

He had strayed, in one of those excursions, about half a mile from the house, through a copse at the corner of the park, which opened into a little green amphitheatre, in the middle of which was a pool of water, formed by a rivulet that crept through the matted grass, till it fell into this basin by a gentle cascade.

The sun was gleaming through the trees, which were pictured on the surface of the pool beneath; and the silence of the scene was only interrupted by the murmurs of the water-fall, sometimes accompanied by the querulous note of the wood-pigeons, who inhabited the neighbouring copse.

Bolton seated himself on the bank, and listened to their dirge. It ceased; for he had disturbed the sacred, solitary haunt. "I will give you some music in return," said he; and drew from his pocket a small-piped flute, which he frequently carried with him in his eveningwalks, and serenaded the lonely shepherd returning from his fold. He played a little plaintive air which himself had composed; he thought he had played it by chance: but Miss Sindall had commended it the day before; the recollection of Miss Sindall accompanied the sound, and he had drawn her portrait listening to its close.

She was indeed listening to its close; for accident had pointed her walk in the very same direction with Bolton's. She was just coming out of the wood, when she heard the soft notes of his flute; they had something of fairy music in them that suited the scene, and she was irresistibly drawn nearer the place where he sat, though some wayward feeling arose, and whispered, that she should not approach it. Her feet were approaching it whether she would or no; and she stood close by his side, while the last cadence was melting from his pipe.

She repeated it after him with her voice. "Miss Sindall!" cried he, starting up with some emotion."I know," said she, " you will be surprised to find me here; but I was enchanted hither by the sound of your flute. Pray touch that little melancholy tune again." He began, but he played very ill. "You blow it," said she, "not so sweetly as before; let me try what tone I can give it." She put it to her mouth, but she wanted the skill to give it voice." There cannot be much art in it;"-she tried it again-"and yet it will not speak at my bidding." She looked stedfastly on the flute, holding her fingers on the stops; her lips were red from the pressure, and her figure altogether so pastoral and innocent, that I do not believe the kisses, with which the poets make Diana greet her sister huntresses, were ever more chaste than that which Bolton now stole from her by surprise.

Her cheeks were crimson at this little violence of Harry's. "What do you mean, Mr Bolton?"

said she, dropping the flute to the ground. ""Twas a forfeiture," he replied, stammering, and blushing excessively, "for attempting to blow my flute."-"I don't understand you," answered Lucy, and turned towards the house, with some marks of resentment on her countenance. Bolton was for some time rivetted to the spot; when he recovered the use of his feet, he ran after Miss Sindall, and gently laying hold of her hand, "I cannot bear your anger," said he, "though I own your displeasure is just; but forgive, I entreat you, this unthinking offence of him, whose respect is equal to his love."-"Your love, Mr Bolton !"—"I cannot retract the word, though my heart has betrayed me from the prudence which might have stifled the declaration. I have not language, Miss Lucy, for the present feelings of my soul; till this moment I never knew how much I loved you, and never could I have expressed it so ill."-He paused—she was looking fixedly on the ground, drawing her hand softly from his, which refused involuntarily to quit its hold." May I not hope?" said he

You have my pardon, Mr Bolton."-" But" "I beg you," said Lucy, interrupting him, "to leave this subject; I know your merit, Mr Bolton-my esteem-you have thrown me into such confusion-nay, let go my hand." 166 Pity then, and forgive me."-She sighed he pressed her hand to his lips-she blushed, and blushed in such a manner- -They have never been in Bolton's situation, by whom that sigh, and that blush, would not have been understood,

CHAP. IV.

Bolton is separated from Miss Sindall.

THERE was too much innocence in the breast of Lucy, to suffer it to be furnished with disguise. I mean not to throw any imputation on that female delicacy, which, as Milton expresses it,

"would be woo'd, and not unsought be won."

This, in truth, cannot be called art, because nature has given it to all her females. Let it simply proceed from modesty, and it will never go too far; but the affectation of it is ever the consequence of weakness in the head, or cruelty

in the heart.

I believe Miss Sindall to have been subject to neither; she did not therefore assume the pride of indifference which she did not feel, to the attachment of so much worth as Bolton's, and he had soon the happiness to find, that his affection, which every day increased, was not lavished without hope of a return.

But he did not seem to be so fortunate, meanwhile, in the estimation of every person in the family: Sir Thomas Sindall had not of late shown that cordiality towards Bolton, with which he had been wont to favour him. As Harry was

unconscious of any reason he could have given for it, this alteration in his cousin's behaviour was, for some time, altogether unnoticed by him; and, when at last he was forced to observe it, he attributed it to no particular cause, but considered it as merely the effect of some accidental and temporary chagrin; nor did he altogether change his opinion, even when Lucy suggested to him her fears on the subject, and entreated him to recollect, if he had, in any respect, disobliged his cousin, whose behaviour seemed to her to indicate some disgust conceived particularly against him.

Not long after, the Baronet informed his family of his purpose of changing their place of residence, for some time, from Sindall-park, to his other estate, where, he said, he found his presence was become necessary; and at the same time communicated to Bolton his desire, that he should remain behind, to superintend the execution of certain plans which he had laid down with regard to the management of some country business at the first mentioned place. Harry thought this sufficiently warranted his expressing a sus picion, that his company had not, of late, been so agreeable to Sir Thomas as it used to be, and begged to be informed in what particular he had offended him. "Offended me, my dear boy!" replied Sir Thomas; "Never in the least.From what such an idea could have arisen, I know not; if from my leaving you here behind when we go to Bilswood, it is the most mistaken one in the world: 'tis but for a few months, till those affairs I talked to you of are finished; and I hope there to have opportunity of showing, that, in your absence, I shall be far from forgetting you."

During the time of their stay at Sindall-park, he behaved to Harry in so courteous and obliging a manner, that his suspicions were totally removed; and he bore with less regret than he should otherwise have done, a separation from his Lucy, which he considered as temporary; besides, that his stay behind was necessary to him, whose countenance and friendship, his attachment to that young lady had now rendered more valuable in his estimation. Love increases the list of our dependencies; I mean it not as an argument against the passion; that sex, I trust, whose power it establishes, will point its vassals to no pursuit but what is laudable.

Their farewell scene passed on that very spot, which I have described in the last chapter, as witness to the declaration of Bolton's passion. Their farewell-but where the feelings say much, and the expression little, description will seldom succeed in the picture.

Their separation, however, was alleviated by the hope that it was not likely to be of long continuance: Sir Thomas's declaration, of his intending that Harry should follow them in a few months, was not forgotten; and the intermediate days were swallowed up, in the antici

pation of the pleasures which that period should produce.

In the mean time, they took something from the pain of absence by a punctual correspondence. These letters I have seen: they describe things little in themselves; to Bolton and Lucy they were no trifles, but by others their importance would not be understood. One recital only I have ventured to extract for the perusal of the reader; because I observe, that it strongly affected them, who, in this instance, were interested no more than any to whom the feelings it addresses are known; and some of my readers, probably, have the advantage of not being altogether unacquainted with the persons of whom it speaks.

CHAP. V.

An Adventure of Miss Sindall's at Bilswood.

To assume her semblance, is a tribute which vice must often pay to virtue. There are popular qualities which the world looks for, because it is aware, that it may be sometimes benefited by their exertion. Generosity is an excellence, by the apparent possession of which I have known many worthless characters buoyed up from their infamy; though with them it was, indeed, but thoughtless profusion; and, on the other hand, I have seen amiable men marked out with a sneer by the million, from a temperance or reservedness of disposition, which shuns the glare of public, and the pleasures of convivial life, and gives to modesty and gentle manners the appearance of parsimony and meanness of spirit.

The imputation of merit with mankind, Sindall knew to be a necessary appendage to his character; he was careful, therefore, to omit no opportunity of stepping forth to their notice as a man of generosity. There was not a gentleman's servant in the county, who did not talk of the knight's munificence in the article of vails; and a park-keeper was thought a happy man, whom his master sent with a haunch of venison to Sir Thomas. Once a-year too he feasted his tenants, and, indeed, the whole neighbourhood, on the large lawn in the front of his house, where the strong-beer ran cascade-wise from the mouth of a leaden Triton.

But there were objects of compassion, whose relief would not have figured in the eye of the public, on whom he was not so remarkable for bestowing his liberality. The beggars, he complained, were perpetually stealing his fruit, and destroying his shubbery; he, therefore, kept a wolf-dog to give them their answer at the gate; and some poor families in the village on his estate had been brought to beggary by prosecutions for poaching, an offence which every country gentleman is bound, in honour, to punish

with the utmost severity of the law; and cannot, therefore, without a breach of that honour, alleviate by a weak and ill-judged exercise of benevolence.

Miss Lucy, however, as she could not so strongly feel the offence, would sometimes contribute to lessen the rigour of its punishment, by making small presents to the wives and children of the delinquents. Passing, one evening, by the door of a cottage, where one of those pensioners on her bounty lived, she observed, standing before it, a very beautiful lap-dog, with a collar and bell, ornamented much beyond the trappings of any animal that could belong to the house. From this circumstance her curiosity was excited to enter, when she was not a little surprised to find a young lady in a most elegant undress, sitting on a joint-stool by the fire, with one of the children of the family on her lap. The ladies expressed mutual astonishment in their countenances at this meeting, when the good woman of the house running up to them, and clasping a hand of each in her's, "Blessings," said she, "thousands of blessings on you both! a lovelier couple, or a better, my eyes never looked on."-The infant clapped its hands as if instinctively." Dear heart!" continued its mother, "look, if my Tommy be not thanking you too! well may he clap his hands; if it had not been for your gracious selves, by this time his hands would have been cold clay! (mumbling his fingers in her mouth, and bathing his arms with her tears.) When you strictly forbade me to tell mortal of your favours, oh! how I longed to let each of you know, that there was another lady in the world as good as herself."

The stranger had now recovered herself enough to tell Miss Lucy, how much it delighted her to find, that a young lady, of her figure, did not disdain to visit affliction, even amongst the poor and the lowly. "That reflection," answered the other, "applies more strongly to the lady who makes it, than to her who is the occasion of its being made. I have not, madam, the honour of your acquaintance; but methinks, pardon my boldness, that I feel as if we were not strangers; at least, I am sure that I should reckon it a piece of singular good fortune, if this interview could entitle me to call you stranger no longer." Their landlady cried and laughed by turns; and her two guests were so much pleased with this meeting, that they appointed a renewal of it, at an hour somewhat earlier of the subsequent evening.

Lucy came a few minutes before the time of appointment; when she learned, that the stranger was the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman, whom a difference of disposition from that of Sir Thomas Sindall, arising at last to a particular coolness, had entirely estranged for many years from the Baronet, and prevented all intercourse between the families.

When this lady arrived, she brought such