tantia, who mourned a widowed love, had been the object of his
ill-placed affections.

Full of apprehension, destitute alike of delicacy, gratitude, and
candour, and disposed, from her political feelings, to ascribe every bad
passion and action to the royalists, a thought struck her that poverty
might have tempted the old delinquent to murder her son; and the
suspicion grew to certainty, when the most minute inquiries could give
no information of him subsequent to his receiving a large remittance
from his tenants the week before he was last seen at Ribblesdale. Her
humble attendants, on hearing her opinion, protested that nothing was
ever more probable. The chaplain expatiated on the vices of the
episcopal clergy, and cited the words of that-then-popular writer,
Martin Mar-prelate, to prove them guilty of the greatest offences, not
excepting even theft and murder. The gentleman-usher found damning
proofs of extreme poverty in all the arrangements of the Beaumonts, and
the waiting-gentlewoman could no otherwise account for the deep
melancholy of Constantia, than by supposing her lover had been murdered
by her father, whose pale care-worn features bore, in her opinion, the
character of an assassin.

Having wrought her mind to this conclusion, Lady Bellingham sent again
for her confidant Morgan, who, beside his aversion to one whom he had
long felt to be a troublesome neighbour, had now particular reasons for
appearing zealously inclined to serve the Protector and his friends. He
advised Lady Bellingham to state the loss of her son to His Highness,
and procure his order for the Doctor's arrest, adding, that even if
innocent of this accusation, the imprisonment of one, who as an
irreclaimable royalist, deserved punishment, was no breach of justice.
He assured Her Ladyship, that her son's long residence in a disaffected
family, had not occasioned the smallest change in his opinions, but that
he showed his zeal for the good old cause, by informing him of all the
proceedings and councils of the delinquents that came to his knowledge;
and he feared, as he was missing a little time before Charles Stewart's
attempt on Scotland, his having penetrated into that design precipitated
their bloody purposes. His communications shaped the fluctuating
purposes of Lady Bellingham into a most determinate and diabolical
resolve, and she returned to London with the heart of an "Ate hot from
hell," and the aspect of a Niobe.

She now presen