been. Of pride, he had no small portion; and it was, perhaps, rendered more vigilant by the reflection that he was maintaining a station in society, to which neither his birth, his fortune, nor his talents, viewed singly, might seem to entitle him.

Such a person would naturally be irritated by the cool and careless treatment which he experienced from Sir William Lacy, a man superior in rank and descent, and whose inhospitality it was therefore obvious to attribute to pride. At the same time, the baronet felt more jealous than he was disposed to admit, of the popularity and influence which this low-born person had obtained in the neighbourhood.

A number of trifling causes also contributed, on either side, to swell the amount of their respective grievances. In the first place, Mr. Morton had been an unsuccessful suitor of Lady Lacy's; and, shortly after his marriage, thought proper to betray his resentment, by repulsive treatment of that lady. Moreover, on an argument which once took place between the gentlemen, Sir William unfortunately let fall a compliment to Mr. Morton upon his skill in irony. The baronet was notoriously addicted to punning, and was thought to have uttered the remark with a sly significance of manner; but, though appearances were against him, the offence was really unintentional. Mr. Morton, however, thought otherwise; and this equivocal allusion to his father's trade galled his pride severely; the more perhaps, because it was too questionable an affront to be openly noticed. Soon afterwards, Sir William Lacy, who, as lord of a neighbouring manor, had the right of fishing in a river which flowed for some distance through the property of Mr. Morton, wishing to exercise his right, sent his keeper with a request to the latter to be allowed to enter upon his lands. Mr. Morton, forgetting for a

while his usual guarded courtesy, replied that Sir William Lacy's people had full liberty to fish the river; but that, in justice to his tenants, whose crops were now in a state of forwardness, he must positively forbid them from setting their foot on either bank.

These were some of the petty circumstances which sowed disunion in the breasts of two men whose pleasing manners and gentlemanly habits ought to have produced a mutual friendship. It would have been fortunate, perhaps, had there been any one great ground of offence in place of the trivial causes which now existed. There would then have been something to forgive and forget; hands would have been shaken, and they would have been better friends in consequence. But now there was nothing to warrant enmity, and a great deal which seemed to justify dislike, and upon which they could never come to an explanation, because they would each have been ashamed of allowing that any one circumstance had ever dwelt in their recollection. Therefore, after debarring themselves of all proper means of fairly estimating each other's character, they sat down in satisfied dislike, each investing the other with disagreeable attributes of their own choosing. Sir William Lacy regarded Mr. Morton as an ill-bred, assuming, low-minded person; while that gentleman viewed the baronet as proud, cynical, illiberal, and selfish.

Lady Louisa Morton was a weak, dawdling woman, who, having naturally rather delicate health, indulged in playing the invalid till she became at last almost as incapable of exertion as she would fain have been believed. She was not unamiable, but had many of the petty faults to which a weak mind, under the influence of indolence and ill health, is naturally exposed. She had five children living, two sons and three daughters.

The eldest daughter, Lady Malvern, was now about four-and-twenty; a pretty woman, not positively unamiable, but rather spoilt, with no little vanity and pretension, and an uneasy aspiration after fashionable distinction. She was fond of her husband and her sister Agnes, to whom she was an active chaperon, and whom she was proud of producing, though not so proud as she was of being the daughter-in-law of Lady Rodborough, whom she thought the first of human beings, and who treated her with great contempt. Agnes was about four years younger, and had herself a younger sister, Marianne, then about fifteen. The two sons were of the intermediate ages, of twentythree and eighteen. The eldest was attaché to an embassy. The youngest, who was destined for the church, was just entered at Oxford.

Agnes, the second daughter, had lived very little with her parents. At an early age she had been adopted by Mrs. Denham, sister of Mr. Mor ton, who had married a man of good fortune, and who, having no children, entreated Lady Louisa and her brother to give up to her their second daughter. The prospects held out by this proposal were such as inclined them to accede to it; and the little Agnes was consequently resigned to the tuition of her aunt, who, being a woman of good principles and strong sense, gave to her niece an education in every respect excellent, and infinitely better than she could have received under the feeble administration of Lady Louisa.

Mrs. Denham became a widow soon after this precious charge devolved upon her: she, however, long survived her husband, and had now been dead about two years, Agnes being at the period of that event little more than seventeen. She left handsome legacies to the brothers and sisters of her adopted charge, and to several of her own friends

and relations; but the bulk of her fortune amounting to eighty thousand pounds, was settled upon Agnes and her issue, and, in failure of issue, was to be divided at her death between her brothers and sisters, and their children. Other conditions were annexed to the bequest. The money was vested in two trustees, who were also appointed her guardians, and four hundred a year was to be paid to her out of it, till she arrived at the age of twenty-four, at which time she was to be entitled to the annual interest of the whole.

She was also to become entitled to the whole income of her fortune upon her marriage previous to that age, provided that such marriage was contracted with the consent of her guardians and trustees. But if she married without their consent before she arrived at the age of twenty-four, she was to forfeit all but the sum of ten thousand pounds, and the remainder was to go to her brothers and sisters, and their children, as before mentioned. The trustees were Mr. Sackville, a relation of the late Mr. Denham, a man of considerable talent, and an intimate friend of the family, and Mr. Hawksworth, an elderly gentleman of great respectability. To each of these were left bequests; and to Mr. Sackville in particular, the house and surrounding estates.

CHAPTER III.

'Tis safest to begin with a little aversion.

The Rivals.

We must now return to Huntley Park, where we shall find the hour of dinner fast approaching, and the party re-appearing after their dispersion. for the business of the toilette. Agnes Morton could not help looking, with some curiosity, round the rooms in search of the object of their previous conversation, but saw, hitherto, none but well known faces. At length the door of an adjoining room was opened, and she saw enter a young man, rather short and fat, with a face of irresistible good humour, and a manner which, with all its oddity, seemed admirably suited to the person it belonged to. If this was Lacy, she thought the judgment rather too favourable which had commended his good looks; but scarcely had she settled this point than, "Hartley, how are you?" burst at once from several quarters.

"You have been hiding of late," said Mr. Tyrwhitt. "In what part of the world were you to be seen?"

"Seen! I hardly know," said the character; "I saw myself in the glass every morning-but you would hardly have found any thing like me there." Then, moving on towards Lady Appleby, he uttered a good deal of laughable nonsense in the form of messages, which he pretended that Mrs. Hartley had charged him to deliver.

VOL. I

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