LADY A. VERNON TO MISS MONTRESSOR.

Delaward Park.

Ir is strange, dearest Caroline, but nevertheless true, that your worldly wisdom is much less congenial to my feelings, than are the pure, and, as you call them, severe principles of Lady Delaward. There is something so heartless, so calculating, in your system, that I turn from it with dislike; and your letter, which was forwarded to me here, has vexed and disappointed me. You should have seen the meeting of Lady Delaward and her father, and the affectionate and respectful attention Lord Delaward pays him, and then you would not, could not, depreciate the power of love; for, every courtesy to the parent indicated the warm attachment which the husband bore to the daughter. You should have seen, Caroline, the glances of deep,

but silent tenderness, with which Lady Delaward repays her lord for each and all of these acts of attention; and even you must have become sensible of the inestimable value of that sentiment which produces such effects. It is now that Lord Howard is repaid for all the chagrin he felt at his daughter's departure from his roof. In witnessing the happiness of her well-ordered home, he ceases to remember that his has become lonely; and the deep, the devoted attachment of her husband, manifested in a thousand daily proofs, consoles him for having yielded her to him.

I like Lord Delaward more every hour. There is a kindness and cordiality in his manner towards those he considers his friends, that receives additional value from his stately courtesy to mere acquaintances. It may be only fancy, but I sometimes think that there is something of pity mingled in the

kindness he evinces towards me; Lady Delaward, also, often looks at me with a pensive gaze, as if she augured ill of the engagement I have formed. She asked me whether it was irrevocable, and whether I loved Lord Annandale? I was on the point of throwing myself into her arms, and avowing all my feelings; when the recollection, that my poor mother had told her that it was I who had vanquished hers and my father's objections, sealed my lips, until I had acquired sufficient firmness to answer in the affirmative, while my heart rebelled against the falsehood of the assertion. Since then, she has, evidently, been very guarded in communicating to me her opinion of Lord Annandale; and from this conversation I date the inexplicable pity which seems to pervade her and Lord Delaward's feeling towards me. And yet, there are moments when I ask

myself, whether, in thus uniting myself to a man I do not love, I am not rendering myself an object of pity?

Yesterday, we drove through the beautiful park here; and Lady Delaward stopped at a "cottage of gentility," which, though not displaying a "double coach-house," was, nevertheless, by the neatness, nay, elegance, of its structure, well entitled to that appellation.

"I must introduce you to a very valued friend of my husband's," said she to my mother, as we were marshalled through a light and cheerful little vestibule, by a rural Hebe, in the shape of a handmaiden, to one of the prettiest and most comfortable small libraries it has ever been my good fortune to

enter.

"I have brought you my dear friends, Mrs. Ord," said Lady Delaward, presenting us to one of the most ladylike women

imaginable; who, though past the meridian of life, still possessed considerable remains of beauty. By her were seated two lovely girls, of seventeen and eighteen, one drawing, and the other embroidering, whose beaming eyes sparkled with pleasure at seeing Lady Delaward. The ordinary salutation over, my mother, after gazing attentively at Mrs. Ord, who also looked at her, rose from her seat, and, approaching her, demanded whether she did not recognise the friend of her early youth, Elizabeth De Vere?

Scarcely had the question been uttered, when the friends, for such they had been, though long years had separated them, and different destinies had led to an ignorance of each other's fate, were, with tears in their eyes, embracing, and mutually presenting their children. You know the warmth of my

dear

mother's feelings; and they were now greatly