designed retreat on either side prevented their meeting. Tremaine, indeed, seeing them at the little gate which led from the garden, hastened to open it for them; and the politeness of his air, as well as his animated manner, struck both the ladies. But as they curtsied their thanks, and were retreating to the house, he began to think he should lose them; so without ceremony (a thing not at all surprising in France), he accosted them in English.

"Is it possible," said he," that I have the pleasure of seeing two of my countrywomen, and two such countrywomen, in a village in Auvergne ?"

It

The air and look of interest with which he uttered this were not lost upon either lady. The elder, though pleased, regarded it as common gallantry; but it went deep into the very heart of the younger, whose cheek it suffused with blushes. was a very lovely cheek, and fancy might revel long before it created its fellow. With a simplicity which seemed to make concealment of any one emotion impossible, there was yet a bashfulness about this young person, which appeared to demand protection and encouragement; and what it demanded was asked in a manner so gentle, and at the same time so frank, that Tremaine was perfectly charmed by it.

With his admiration, too, all his faculties were called forth; and as few exceeded him in good

breeding, and both mother and daughter were of a character peculiarly alive to it, a very little, and very common conversation, on such topics as the occasion of their meeting and the beauty of the place inspired, made the three parties better acquainted in ten minutes, than the common scenes of the world could in a week.

They entered a little court before the house (which was a sort of moderate château in the old French style), full of flowers, en parterre, backed by espaliers, and beds of strawberries; and while Tremaine was complimenting them on the agreeableness of their retreat, two very young, sprightly, and pretty girls, ran out to greet mamma, telling her that their supper of fruit and cream was ready.

The admiration which these lively children drew from Tremaine, won still more upon the elder lady ; while his whole manner and language, and particularly the softness which seemed naturally to accompany every thing he addressed to her, made a deep impression upon the sensitive heart of the

younger.

In the conversation, her mother of course took the lead. Indeed, Eugenia said very little, but seemed to defer, with the modesty natural to her, to what fell from her seniors. But though she was silent, it was not an unobserving silence; and the changeful traits of a countenance that absolutely

operating upon an over-delicate taste, made him too often reject, what, if not rejected, might have made him happy.

Tremaine's unsatisfied mind having induced him to reject the church, he endeavoured to find anchorage in the certainty of the law. Accordingly, for about twelve months he studied its philosophy in the moralists-its antiquities in the historians-and its rewards in the splendour which attends upon the eloquence of counsel, and the honours of the Bench. But he studied them in his lodgings in May Fair, not at the Temple: for except at the only dinner he ate in the Temple Hall, when he endeavoured to keep a term, he never was known to have been in an Inn of Court. He once, indeed, heard the Chancellor from the woolsack in the House of Lords, on a great constitutional question; and he once heard a distinguished popular advocate, in mitigation of the crime of a young woman of high birth, who, sacrificed by her family to a man she could not love, and who did not love her, fell, after a struggle, into the arms of a man who had always possessed her heart.

It was the impression produced by these speeches that sent him to the law; but the bent of character above described soon sent him back again. His over-delicate and sickly fancy could not endure law society. The hard sense, indeed, which he there

met with, sometimes arrested his understanding; but the pedantry in which it was attired absolutely petrified him. Spoiled by his prejudices, he stayed not to discover, as he might have done, the genius, taste, and real elegance of mind which belong to many, who are yet the most learned at the bar.

As to their females, having once ventured to one of their assemblies in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, he escaped, after an hour's purgatory, vowing never to see another; and no arguments of his friends could persuade him that happiness of any kind could be found in what he called such a second-rate profession.

Though his patrimony was now almost exhausted, he betook himself to arms, and entered the Guards. Here at least he was sure of finding honourable feeling, polished manners, and gallantry of spirit. He made a campaign, and obtained distinction; that is, such distinction as a captain of a company could acquire. But from the lateness of his entry into the army, he had the mortification to find himself commanded by persons some years his juniors, It is true, his family interest placed him at head-quarters. But it was not there that he was always likely to feel satisfied. He was indeed remarked as a sort of frondeur, who was ever commending merit which others did not choose to allow, and advocating the claims of officers who had

nothing but their friendlessness to recommend them Yet he was often forced to confess that even these by no means reached, in personal qualifications, the high notions he had formed of the military character; and some of them at last, abandoning him as their protector, got before him by the lowest arts of flattery, and the most vicious complaisance. This excited new disgusts. The whole constitution of the army, he said, was wrong; it was a mistake to suppose it composed of gentlemen; it neither rewarded nor ennobled its members.

In this state of things, he came to a downright quarrel with his General (a relation of his own), for sending home one of his staff with the intelligence of a victory, when another had distinguished himself more in the battle. It was in vain the General condescended to point out, that, in order to avoid invidious distinction, a rule had been adopted to send home officers in their turn. He served out the campaign, and at the end of it quitted the army, with some addition to his reputation on the score of gallantry, and not a little on the score of discontent.

Thus situated, his mind soured, his hopes crossed, his youth wasted, and his fortune spent, an employment of some consequence was offered him about the court: but as it was also a political employment, which required its possessor to support the minister, and as the politics of his family had ever led them to