d Eustace; "the glorious event which reinstates you in
the rank and fortune of an Earl's daughter renders De Vallance the son
of a disgraced usurper, despoiled of his ill-acquired splendor, and heir
to nothing save the infamy of his parents."

"I had prepared my mind," said Isabel, "for every thing, but his being
faithless to his vows. Had he been constant, I would have shared his lot
however humble, and told the world his superior virtues cancelled the
treasons and the treachery of his parents. But if beauty and affluence
have proved irresistible, let me remember that my fortunes seemed
desperate, allow the force of the temptation, and forgive him."

"There spoke my own magnanimous sister," exclaimed Eustace, folding her
to his heart. "Thou worthy choice of my best and dearest friend! a
wretched father is the stronger claim which detains him from thee. He is
gone to carry comfort to the most pitiable object in the world, an
alarmed, deserted sinner."

"I never will forgive you, Eustace, for thus torturing me," said Isabel,
and while she spoke, encircled his neck with her arms. "Was there no
truth in the tale of an enamoured lady of St. Helier?" Eustace blushed,
called it a gossip's story, and threw his eyes on Constance, dearer and
more attractive in her faded loveliness, than when in the happy prime of
youthful beauty she first enslaved his affectionate heart.

Neville sat thoughtful and silent, gazing on his children with the
painful exhaustion of overstrained sensibility. Isabel and Eustace
seemed emulous to out-talk each other. Constantia looked unutterable
content. Dr. Beaumont was mild, devout, admonitory; more inclined to
bless the sure mercies of Providence, than to condemn the perverse
conduct of man. He now recollected the anxieties of his good sister
Mellicent, and proposed that Williams should be dispatched with the
joyful tidings. "She must be told," said Eustace, "that the air-built
castles she was so skilful in erecting have now a firm foundation. 'Tis
time she should exercise her abilities in making bride-cake and comfits;
two happy pairs will soon claim her services." "Nay," said Isabel, "as
you are in a marrying humour, there shall be three, for who but she can
reward good Dr. Lloyd, without whose vigilance and generosity we should
all have been the most pitiable of mourners, wretched at the time of
universal joy?"

Eustace answered that the worthy Esculapius was returning in the King's
suite, be