ideas, and he hastily went to Mary's apartment, to indulge it to the utmost. 66 He was some minutes before he could gain resolution to look at the babe, but when he took it in his arms, and gazed on its little features, he felt all the sacred and indiscribable emotions of a parent, and in the delight of expressing them, almost forgot that they might have been more perfect. My poor babe,” he exclaimed, "thy father has deprived thee of thy just inheritance, but he will watch over, and befriend thee, whilst he has the power to do it." To Mary he made the most affecting acknowledgments, and she, absorbed in maternal delight, assured him repeatedly of her forgiveness, whilst the long absent smile of rapture and contentment, played on her innocent and now tranquil features, as she listened to the soft breathings of her sleeping son. How willingly would Lord Courtney have devoted himself to retirement during Mary's recovery, how willingly would he have abandoned a scheme, of which in his hours of serious thought, he saw all the imperfections. In those hours his cruelty to Mary, his ingratitude to the Marchese, and his injustice to Lord Drelincourt, in taking so important a step, as forming a matrimonial alliance, without consulting him on the subject, all rose to his mental view, but too soon the suggestions of reason and affection, were put to flight by the phantom, false-honor, the illusions of self-love, and the triumph of vanity. VOL. II. K CHAP CHAP. XXXII. Vice is a monster of such hideous mein, POPE. PERHAPS vice is never more certain of success, than when she approaches the object of her allurement by gradations almost imperceptible; it is incumbent, on us therefore to watch our thoughts, before they lead to actions, for that enemy is the most dangerous, whose machinations are the least suspected. Had Lord Courtney been told that he would seduce the orphan, left to his charge with the expiring breath of a brave but unfortunate officer, how would he have spurned the the idea, with all the generous indignation of conscious virtue! but had he also been told, that he would afterwards desert her, and abandon the first fruits of his illicit love, the innocent and unfortunate pledge of his guilty passion, then the enormity of the crime would have appeared almost to preclude the possibility of its commission, and resentment would have been lost in incredulity. Let then Lord Courtney's unhappy dereliction from the paths of virtue, in which he had been trained, and with the beauty and pleasantness of which he was fully acquainted, teach us the first rule of prudence, which is to distrust ourselves. "If a man thinks that he stands, let him take heed lest he fall;" and may we learn by the errors of others, to be yet more watchful over our own. When Lord Courtney's promised billet arrived, Everilda's cheeks were dyed in blushes of shame, for the deception of which it was the vehicle; and her agitation K 2 tion was observed by both her parents, who unfortunately attributing it to her partiality for the writer, and her sorrow for his departure, willingly consented to her desire of visiting her friend, hoping the change of scene would divert her mind from the attachment which she had rashly formed. When she took leave of her father and mother, her excessive grief, would have inevitably inspired suspicion in them, had they not been fatally blinded by the previous conjectures that they had formed; and when she in an agony of tears exclaimed, "Oh my dear parents, assure me of your forgiveness and love," they still imagined that she alluded to the opposition which she had recently shewn, and kindly assured her of their undiminished affection. When Everilda arrived near the place where she had appointed to meet Lord Courtney, she informed the astonished Claudina of her designs, and requested the |