The opposition, indeed, held out terms to him which could not be refused; for they not only practised upon his proneness to think things wrong, but upon his equally strong proneness to believe that he was born to set them right.

. He caught at this, and in a little time was admitted into their councils. But though his station, his attainments, and his integrity, entitled him to a place in those councils, in other respects he soon found himself less qualified than he had supposed. Some of the leaders played double; others went farther than he intended to go with them; and some entered the opposition merely to enhance their price with the government.

As he was sincere in his wish to act up to his principle, he complied with the demands of his party to give them his voice as well as his vote; and for this in many things he was excellently qualified. For he had a very noble air, and a manner not either less interesting or less commanding from its being tinged with melancholy. His voice was both sweet and sonorous, his language polished, and his taste classical. Perhaps it was too much so; for he sometimes failed from the mere circumstance of being too anxious not to do so.

He was in fact too easily disgusted with himself, as well as with others; and was frequently not a little piqued at seeing a coarse, and even a vulgar

orator succeed in arresting the attention of the house, in consequence of the total indifference he felt as to whether he succeeded or not. It was under these circumstances, in connexion with others of a similar nature, which need not be particularized, that Tremaine had long meditated a retreat from public life. We will not, however, say that this measure would have been so soon adopted as it was, but for some peculiar mortifications and disappointments, both to his feelings and his principles, which his ill fate had destined him still to undergo.

It has been said indeed, by some, that about this time he suffered new disappointments in another "affair of the heart;" by others that he was the disappointer, and that he had used a young lady of rank-what is called ill. Of this, perhaps, more hereafter. As to the fact, it is certain, that though his heart was a sufferer, and a cruel one, it was in a manner and with a party far different from what is usually understood when an affair of the heart is mentioned; for the disappointment was with one of his own sex, and politics and friendship, not love, sustained the wound.

In a word, one of the leaders of his party, a man not only of the highest rank and attainments, but of a nature seemingly, and perhaps really, so amiable and sincere, that to enjoy his confidence, and be distinguished by his friendship, was the pride

neither common sense, nor, to himself, common justice.

He resolved then to depart, without releasing himself, even with Mrs. Belson, from the self-imposed disadvantage, that he was to be considered still as a man not free: nor did the altered manner of that lady tend to shake his resolution; though the tears of Eugenia-amounting to a passion of grief-put his firmness to a much severer trial.

CHAP. VII.

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.

"Was this the idol that you worship so?"

SHAKSPEARE.

TREMAINE took the road to Limoges, and had scarcely proceeded a mile, before he met a young man, attended by a servant, riding à franc étrier, who by his air and costume was English, and whom he rightly judged to be Monson. He surveyed him with interest, as Monson himself stopped to inquire the road to Valence; which Tremaine politely

shewed him: pointing out the very smoke of Mrs. Belson's chimnies on the other side of the valley.

There was an intelligent soldier-like air about this young man, but nothing which in Tremaine's thoughts ought to excite his fear, with even all the aid which he had so strangely afforded him against himself. "It will be curious, however," said he, "if I have shewn my rival the very road which he may be taking to ruin me.”

From Limoges, where he joined his suite, after above two months' absence, he wrote to Mrs. Belson and Eugenia, announcing his safe arrival, and in express terms asking leave to correspond with his youthful friend.

He received answers from both. Eugenia's was sufficiently characteristic, and partly satisfied him; for it made no mention whatever of Monson, and spoke tenderly of himself. It was remarkable, however, that she made no mention of his request to correspond with her.

Mrs. Belson's letter was more collected, and certainly more cool. She said she had allowed Eugenia to answer him, but earnestly hoped it would be the last letter he might receive from her.

"The more I think," said she, "of your want of freedom, and your duty to your relative, the more I regret our late intimacy. Had you been free, you know how agreeable you were to us; but because we

have sinned, do not let us sin on.

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I have every

reason to think Mr. Monson's regard for my daughter is not merely undiminished, but increased: /his attentions are most close, and though I am no worldly mother, you must not be surprised, that I endeavour to bring my daughter's mind to a state different from that in which you left it. As it is, she thinks she is sure she still doats upon her friend."

"Thinks she is sure! still doats!" exclaimed Tremaine, as he smiled in bitterness at this letter. "No worldly mother! Excuse me, good madam, if I distrust your account of that point!"

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Upon this he again wrote to Eugenia, and, in evident agitation, requested to take his answer only from herself.

To his mortification, it was a fortnight before he received a reply, and then, such a one as filled him with the most cruel suspicions. The younger, as well as the elder lady, had now begun to see all the impropriety of their former conduct.

"Still are you too dear to me,” said Eugenia; "but as to the correspondence, your engagement would present too many impediments to the free course of my heart, to allow of my acceding to it.”

Tremaine nearly cursed the whole sex when he read this letter; but recollecting the angelic ingenuousness of the countenance that had charmed him, and all those professions so sweet to his soul, "No!"