; my children----.' "But excuse me,
Talton, here is one"--(looking at Frederick, who appeared surprised and
shocked at this account of his father) "too nearly interested to be
pleased with this part of my narrative. Suffice it to say,--the mask was
here thrown off by my brother, and I condemned to poverty! For the
promise given to my father was merely verbal, and without witness,
whilst the possessions of my father, in full confidence of Arthur's
honour, had been secured to him by the strongest ties of the law.

"My father felt the stroke more severely than I did; he wept--and, in
the bitterest anguish, asked pardon of heaven and me, for the step he
had taken, and begged I would reconsider the proposal of Miss Tangress,
before I absolutely rejected it. In all probability, he said, a few
years would terminate her existence; I had no particular attachment to
restrict me; and it would convey ease to his death-bed to know I was not
only independent of my brother, but in a state of equal affluence.

"In the passion of the moment, this last consideration determined me; I
complied--and in less than three weeks became the husband of Miss
Tangress.

"The possession of her fortune, however, could not recompense me for her
haughty wayward disposition. In her domestic arrangements she was
tyrannical and parsimonious, and so truly capricious, that the most
studied attentions to please could not twice succeed in the same
particular. Certain I had not married for love, her rancorous
disposition soon led her to resent, or rather to revenge, my want of
affection. My expenditure became extravagance, my wants superfluous, and
my acquaintance by far too general. As such, by the most pointed slights
and insults, my friends were severally driven from my house; nor was
even my father spared.

"I bore with the temper of my wife till human patience could sustain it
no longer; and one day, after having been severely reproached with the
favour she had conferred in uniting herself to a man not worth a
shilling; I mounted my horse, and crossed the country to
Brighthelmstone.

"The second night after my arrival there, I went to the ball given in
honour of Sir Henry Beechton, where I became acquainted with you, and
first saw the lovely Ellenor.

"To mention my admiration is needless: you are already well acquainted
with it. To my anxious inquiries concerning her, the only intelligence I
gained was--that she was an orphan of small fortune, and