hich, if
confined, neither my head nor my heart can long sustain me in
existence!'

"Sir John listened to this address with some surprise; then, shaking his
head at me, pointed his finger to his forehead, as implying he thought
the young wanderer impaired in his intellects.

"Lady Corbet, whose emotions had at first hurried her into the little
indignant reproof I have related, with tenderness replied--she had
indeed, with concern, beheld his dejection before he quitted the hall;
but if any thing there had disgusted, or been the means of rendering him
unhappy, she would readily consent to reside at Holly seat, or any other
of her estates he chose to name, provided he would return to her
protection.

"To this Sir Henry did not deign to return an answer, but, folding his
arms, sat with his brow contracted, and his eyes fixed on the floor,
deaf alike to the solicitations of his mother and the chidings of Sir
John; nor was it till after we were joined by Lady Dursley, that he
yielded an unwilling assent to our united entreaties.

"Lady Corbet's satisfaction at thus regaining her fugitive, expressed
itself more in her countenance than her words: Sir Henry's was
overspread with gloom; he scarcely spoke, but in the evening wrote a
farewell letter to his friend St. Ledger, and early the next morning
attended his mother from the metropolis.

"You will not, perhaps, Howard, wonder that the admiration I formerly
evinced for Lady Corbet, should give rise to more tender sentiments, on
finding her released from her vows, and at liberty to select a partner
better calculated to ensure her happiness, than the one her father had
chosen. I accordingly followed her to Wales, and sought the earliest
opportunity to avow the state of my heart. She answered my declaration
with a frankness which endeared her still more to me, though
discouraging to my addresses. She never, she acknowledged, entertained
but one idea of affection, and that had long since been blighted and
destroyed: the happiness of her son was the only thing in which she then
looked forward for her own. As a lover she could not receive me, but, as
a friend, I should ever be welcomed to the hall.

"As a friend then I have visited, and am not without hopes of one day
obtaining her hand. The assistance I have been able to render her in the
disposal of her property, has imperceptibly worn away the reserve of our
earlier acquaintance; and as I have purchased a considerable esta