had parted from her at Rome to join his regiment, and was only awaiting her return to England, to declare the attachment which he had unfortunately encouraged. But on this part of his history it is neither desirable nor necessary to dwell. We pass, therefore, on to the conversation which Captain Bathurst recollected with regret, and Hamond with a feeling deeper than that of offence, and which he vainly endeavoured to overcome.

The young men, with others of the regiment, had attended a public ball together, and on the following day the conversation naturally fell on the gay scene of the preceding evening. The unusual number of strangers was noticed. And the question of who were beauties, and who were frights, (for in the present day there is no middle class of personal charms), was discussed much in the same terms, and with the same opposition of tastes, usually exhibited on similar occasions-no two agreeing on the pre-eminence of any one woman, till Captain Bathurst and Major Barnard, after exhibiting many varieties of opinion, at length admitted that Miss Fanny Cressingham, in figure and face, was superior to most, if not to all, who were present.

Hamond repeated the name "Cressingham!" but aware of his emotion, in order to cover it, added, "I did not know there was such a person in the room."

"She is, I conclude, one of the Cressinghams of Wood Side," said Captain Bathurst.

"Yes; and related to my friend Mrs. Hargraves, with whom she was last night," replied Major Barnard. "Her mother, you are aware, ran off with somebody many years ago."

"Indeed! I was not aware of this. Yet these girls are marrying well, I understand," said Captain Bathurst.

"That is not surprising, I think," interrupted Hamond, "for the propriety of their conduct would, I should imagine, efface the stigma left upon them by their mother—at least, with all liberal minds."

"Then I am not one of those liberal minds, Mr. Langham," said Captain Bathurst; "for were the lady in question ten times as rich as she is beautiful, and as highly born as she is both-if I loved her perfections as fondly and madly as man could love, without an unsullied name for her dower, she should never be my wife."

Hamond had listened with intensity of attention to this reply of Captain Bathurst's, and, without knowing why, felt piqued. Before he could make any answer, Major Barnard resumed.

"It is of little consequence, Bathurst; for this Miss Cressingham is going to be married immediately, and I, for one, am heartily glad of it."

"And so am I; and so I must be," said Hamond, "so long as I do not wish the innocent to suffer for the guilty." Captain Bathurst turned his large dark eyes on Hamond when he ceased to speak, as if to say, "In what have I offended? Miss Cressingham can be nothing to you, for you confessed you knew not of her presence.' But not quite approving the gaze that met his own, he said very quietly, "I am left to infer, I think, Mr. Langham, that you consider the sentiments I have ventured to express with regard to the daughters of a divorcée condemnable.” He paused; but Hamond making no reply, he continued: "You would perhaps imagine it better that the world should charitably overlook the lapses of a guilty mother for the sake of her innocent offspring."

Hamond thought of Isabella Cressingham, and every feeling of his soul was roused. He spoke with energy as he replied:

"I would have them neither overlooked nor forgotten, Captain Bathurst. Let the woman who voluntarily throws herself from society suffer the just chastisement of exclusion;-but for her children! if the sins of the mother must be visited upon them, let the punishment come from Heaven and not from man. By man let them be considered as doubly orphans-for to them that mother has ceased to be, as entirely as if she were in her grave."

These words were uttered with so much real and deep feeling, that even Captain Bathurst was softened by them, and he replied in a manner as gentle and conciliating as possible

"There may certainly be some plea for children who, like the Misses Cressingham, were abandoned by their mother; but the same argument will scarcely hold, Mr. Langham, in favour of those she may afterward have-her second family ;--the inculcation of their principles and the formation of their manners must be left to her."

Hamond was unprepared for this,-it was a subject on which he had never thought, and it being no longer the cause of Isabella, he was only anxious to get rid of the question. He therefore answered Captain Bathurst briefly by assenting to the truth of what he had said, and the discussion ended. Hamond gladly retreated to his own apartment as soon as he could escape unobserved.

The crowd of sensations which had rushed upon his mind had nearly exhausted it. When he reached his own room, he felt irritated, breathless, and fatigued, with no very distinct consciousness of what was passing in his heart, except displeasure and indignation against Captain Bathurst. Every word which had been uttered seemed disagreeably echoed in his mind, and he mused upon what had passed till he considered Isabella Cressingham an injured being,therefore pitiable, and consequently a greater claimant on his love.

"No," he said, after musing some time, and flattering himself that he had become quite calm; "let what will happen, Bathurst's opinions shall at least have no influence either on my conduct or my feelings."

He was saved from farther meditation on the subject by Colonel Hawkins bursting into his room and exclaiming, "For Heaven's sake! Langham, what is it that I hear? Are you, or are you not, attached to a Miss Cressingham ? Do you, or do you not, know who you are?"

CHAPTER XIX.

Oh! aching time! oh! moments big as years!
All as ye pass, swell out the monstrous truth,
And press it so upon our weary griefs,

That unbelief has not a space to breathe.-KEATS.

COLONEL HAWKINS had been dining at the house of a friend recently returned from Italy, who, having seen a good deal of Hamond when he was at Rome, found great pleasure in speaking of him and asking questions respecting him.

Few themes could be more agreeable to Colonel Hawkins, who was a warm-hearted man, and particularly attached to Hamond. He entered on it, accordingly, in no very measured terms, till it became his turn to listen both with sorrow and surprise. For his friend spoke of his marked attentions to Miss Cressingham at Rome and Florence, and of his own conviction that Hamond was then as ignorant in what relation he stood to the lady as the lady herself of her connexion with him,-Mr. Langham and his tutor having both for a time assumed travelling names.

Colonel Hawkins had heard before of this change of name, and of its having been adopted from necessity. But no word had reached him of the consequence it had entailed in introducing Hamond to a part of his mother's family. He inquired of his friend the Christian name of the Miss Cressingham he alluded to, and learned that it was Isabella," and he recollected that this was the name always given by Hamond when a health to one far away was exacted from him.

This coincidence was sufficient to render a friend like the colonel uneasy: he hastened home and sought Hamond at the mess, where he expected to find him, with the intention of seeking a private interview with him. Hamond had before this quitted the table; and Captain Bathurst, in reply to the colonel's inquiry of "what had caused his absence," briefly detailed the conversation that had been held, and concluding, "I really fear that I have, though I am sure most unintentionally, offended Langham."

"See me in the morning before you see him," said the colonel, and, too full of doubt and apprehension to consider what would be the best mode of proceeding, he broke on Hamond's solitude in the manner already related.

Hamond was startled by the abrupt entrance and agitated yet determined manner of his colonel. He however answered his questions rapidly, and put others in his turn. The colonel, once satisfied of his young friend's unsuspecting ignorance of his mother's conduct, grew immediately tranquil. His voice softened as he said, "No wound that my trusty sword has inflicted in battle was ever so painful as that which my words must now inflict on you, Langham." He paused for a moment; but Hamond made no comment. He arose from his seat, and bent forward as if prepared and

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anxious to hear the evil tidings thus ominously prefaced His close-pressed lips and fearless eye betokened a mind aroused and firm even to desperation, at least for the mo ment. Colonel Hawkins, at one glance, read that he had not spoken in vain, and proceeded to tell Hamond as delicately as such a history could be told, that the mother of Isabella Cressingham was also his own.

"Impossible!-it cannot be true-you must have been misinformed. Who told you?”

The colonel replied not, and his silence brought the con viction his words had failed to produce.

Hamond remained a few minutes silent, then buried his face in his hands, exclaiming,--"Leave me! leave me !"

The colonel was too considerate not to do so, and Hamond was left alone to struggle with the deepest grief he had ever yet known.

To no creature, either verbally or by letter, did he reveal what he suffered in struggling not to be indignant against his father, or unkind to the memory of his mother, or what he felt for his poor sisters. As he said in his letter to Mr. Cooper, the shock made him ill. For some weeks he was confined to his room, and for many more he condemned himself to imprisonment in it, from the mere dread of hearing in casual conversation any word that might rankle in his cureless wound. When at length, persuaded by Colonel Hawkins, he did emerge, he found himself so nervously apprehensive of what might occur, so impetuously irritable in all that he did, that he at length gladly took shelter at Langham Court.

Captain Bathurst was unremitting in his attentions to Hamond during his illness, and when he was well enough to receive visits, studiously sought to conciliate him. Hamond was sensible of this, and tried to feel grateful, but could not. We can as little command our own gratitude as that of others; and all Hamond's feelings revolted from Captain Bathurst, while his judgment spoke in bis favour. It is possible that the unsuccessful efforts which he made to become more reasonable, tended to aggravate rather than subdue the prejudice he was harbouring.

Under grief, vexations, or disappointments, we, most of us, choose some nucleus round which our indignation or repining chiefly gathers, and on which we most frequently bestow those mental invectives which, if uttered, could not