CHAPTER XIX. Oh, hard it is that fondness to sustain, BYRON. MR. MORTON, after taking a grateful and affectionate leave of his daughter,. and promising to strive in every thing to consult her happiness,. and urge a delay as strongly as he durst, went to communicate the intelligence to Sackville. Without preface or circumlocution, he entered at once into the subject, and told his errand in few words. "She consents," said he, "but upon conditions." Sackville took no notice of the latter words, but grasping his hand, expressed, in warm and wellchosen terms, the happiness which he received from such an answer. Mr. Morton, encouraged by his manner, and stimulated by the feelings of a father, eager to secure, in some degree, the happiness of a daughter who had sacrificed so much for his sake, again repeated, in a firm tone, that his daughter's acquiescence was merely conditional. Sackville bowed with a smile of conscious security, and stood silently expecting the communication of 'the stipulated conditions. Mr. Morton then told them, and Sackville was relieved, by hearing that they contained only a request for postponement, from which, as decay of affection was no consideration with him, he appre hended little danger. He even thought that time might have a beneficial effect, and that Agnes might become less averse to the marriage, and might view it at length as a thing of course, after having been long accustomed to his addresses. Therefore, finding Mr. Morton very urgent upon the minor. article of time, he, after a proper show of resistance, and profession of impatience for the happy event, consented that the ceremony should be deferred till the June of the ensuing year. He required, however, that the marriage should take place between that month and September, at latest; and the consequences of an infringement of this agreement, though not expressed, were sufficiently implied to render them very imperative.. He had no wish that their engagement should remain a secret; he had rather, if Agnes approved, that it should be immediately made known. The consent of Mr. Hawksworth, he had no doubt, could easily be obtained, and the long time which would intervene between the announcement of the marriage and its celebration, could always be satisfactorily explained to the world, on the ground of legal delays. Meanwhile, it was not his wish that Agnes should go less into society than before, or that her engagement with him should produce any change in her habits. She was still very young, and he thought it would be unreasonable to seclude her from those scenes of gaiety which she was so calculated to adorn. After many liberal sentiments of this kind, expressed in the most winning manner, he requested an interview with Agnes; but declared that however eager to see her, yet, as his wishes should always bend to hers, he would await her leisure, and not press for an immediate interview while her spirits were yet agitated by the recent announcement. Mr. Morton then quitted him, to report to his daughter what had passed. He informed her of Sackville's wish to see her, and his willingness to await her leisure, and repeated as nearly as he could, the well-chosen terms, in which the message was couched. Agnes smiled mournfully at the deceitful profession of subservience to her will, yet could not but feel obliged by the delicacy of his attention. "I can have no objection," said she, "to receive Mr. Sackville as soon as he may choose to see me. I hope I am equal to the effort-I should gain no additional courage by delay, and therefore wish that our first meeting should be over. "Since such is your wish," said Mr. Morton, "I will go immediately and bring him: but first, let me earnestly entreat you, on no earthly consideration, to endeavour, in your conference with him, to retract that promise which you have made: consider yourself irrevocably bound to him, and remember that the fate of your parents depends upon your compliance." Agnes promised strict obedience; and Mr. Morton repaired once more in quest of his intended son-in-law, leaving Agnes in a painful state of suspense, and listening with a beating heart, for the awful sound of approaching footsteps. Minutes, which seemed hours to her apprehension, had slowly elapsed, when at length the door was gently opened, and Sackville entered the room. Agnes could not look at him-but turned away her head, and directed her eyes she knew not where, for she saw nothing. It was a dreadful moment-her heart beat quicker than before-respiration almost failed-sight and hearing grew imperfect-all sense of external objects seemed to be leaving her, and she thought herself on the point of fainting. was hardly conscious of his presence, till she perceived that somebody was seated near her, that the hand which hung cold and motionless by her side, She was gently taken, and that a voice was expressing in its softest accents-she knew not what: but she was alive to the necessity of rousing herself to a consciousness of what he said; and the effort was soon made. It was long before she had any other task than that of listening; for Sackville, who saw her agitation, and wished to give her time to recover; without pressing for any confirmation of that consent which he assumed to be irrevocably granted, poured forth, with an eloquence which, under other circumstances, would have been. irresistible, all that the most devoted attachment could prompt to the most disinterested of suitors. So amiable, so submissive did he seem, so utterly dependent on her will, that Agnes, while she listened, was almost deceived into a temporary belief of her power over him, and meditated, for an instant, to throw herself upon his compassion, avow that her affections were placed elsewhere, and deprecate the impending punishment which it was in his power to inflict upon her father. But she had been long and intimately acquainted with Sackville, and knew too well with whom she had to deal; and the rising reflection on the probable uselessness of such an appeal, together with the remembrance of her father's injunction, dispelled the transitory hope. Sackville adverted with delicacy and judgment to her wish that their nuptials should be deferred; and without seeming to regard such a wish as any proof of the weakness of her affection for him, remarked how natural it was that a very young person should look forward with some alarm to the prospect of quitting the home of her parents. "But in this case, my dear Agnes," said he, "I hope these evils will be lightened to a greater degree than they are in the case of the generality of young brides. You have had the advantage of knowing me well before you have committed your happiness to my care; and intimacy, and the situation which I have held, have already given me, in some degree, the rights of a protector. You will also be removed to no strange house; but one to which I am sure you are much attached, where you passed so many happy years under the care of my excellent friend, your dear aunt, by whose kindness it is now mine." He then proceeded with much feeling to strike the tender chord which these associations were likely to affect; and artfully connecting himself with the scenes of her childhood, and the memory of her benefactress, he soon succeeded, through the medium of her early affections, in awakening a more tender regard towards himself than she would previously have allowed to be possible. Her mind was agitated with various emotions; affectionate regret for her departed aunt, and vivid recollections of early pleasures; then appeared Sackville in numerous contrasted lights-the former friend of a dear relation-the menacer of a father's happiness-once her firm and valued adviser, to whom in default of parental aid, she would have looked for support-now her suiter, by compulsion, ruining with remorseless selfishness all her best hopes of earthly happiness: but feeling acutely as she did the extent of the injury which Sackville had inflicted, and viewing his conduct in its full enormity, she could not avoid being soothed by his manner, and confessed to herself that the evils of her situation were really lessened by the amiable and seductive colouring which his flattering tongue could lend to every circumstance of their intended union. She knew not how to make an ungracious reply to an address so fraught with every thing that could disarm displeasure, and timidly |