workmen arrived to put the house and
grounds in order for his reception. The apartments were restored to their
pristine splendour, and the park, all disrepairs restored, was guarded with
unusual care.

I was beyond measure disturbed by this intelligence. It roused all my
dormant recollections, my suspended sentiments of injury, and gave rise to
the new one of revenge. I could no longer attend to my occupations; all my
plans and devices were forgotten; I seemed about to begin life anew, and
that under no good auspices. The tug of war, I thought, was now to begin.
He would come triumphantly to the district to which my parent had fled
broken-hearted; he would find the ill-fated offspring, bequeathed with such
vain confidence to his royal father, miserable paupers. That he should know
of our existence, and treat us, near at hand, with the same contumely which
his father had practised in distance and absence, appeared to me the
certain consequence of all that had gone before. Thus then I should meet
this titled stripling--the son of my father's friend. He would be hedged
in by servants; nobles, and the sons of nobles, were his companions; all
England rang with his name; and his coming, like a thunderstorm, was heard
from far: while I, unlettered and unfashioned, should, if I came in contact
with him, in the judgment of his courtly followers, bear evidence in my
very person to the propriety of that ingratitude which had made me the
degraded being I appeared.

With my mind fully occupied by these ideas, I might be said as if
fascinated, to haunt the destined abode of the young Earl. I watched the
progress of the improvements, and stood by the unlading waggons, as various
articles of luxury, brought from London, were taken forth and conveyed into
the mansion. It was part of the Ex-Queen's plan, to surround her son with
princely magnificence. I beheld rich carpets and silken hangings, ornaments
of gold, richly embossed metals, emblazoned furniture, and all the
appendages of high rank arranged, so that nothing but what was regal in
splendour should reach the eye of one of royal descent. I looked on these;
I turned my gaze to my own mean dress.--Whence sprung this difference?
Whence but from ingratitude, from falsehood, from a dereliction on the part
of the prince's father, of all noble sympathy and generous feeling.
Doubtless, he also, whose blood received a mingling tide from his proud
mother--he, the acknowledged focus of the k