s Clara
seemed to fear, he should refuse to break off the engagement with his
nephew--suppose he should forbid mo the house, and, taking advantage
of my absence, use his authority to force on this hateful marriage! All
that would be extremely disagreeable, and I could not say I exactly saw,
at the moment, what means I should be able to employ, effectually to
prevent it. Still it was only a remote contingency--an old man like him,
with one foot, as you might say, in the grave (he could not have been
above sixty, and his constitution, like everything else about him,
appeared of cast-iron), must have some conscience, must pay some little
regard to right and wrong: it would only be necessary to open his eyes
to the enormity of wedding beauty and innocence such as Clara's to
a scoundrel like Cumberland--aman destitute of every honourable
feeling--oh! he must see that the thing was impossible, and, as the
thought passed through my mind, I longed for the moment when I should be
confronted with him, and able to tell him so.

And Clara, too! sweet, bewitching, unhappy Clara! what must not she have
gone through, ere a mind, naturally buoyant and elastic as hers, could
have been crushed into a state of such utter dejection, such calm,
spiritless despair! her only wish, to die--her only hope, to find in the
grave a place "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary
are at rest!" But brighter days were in store for her--it should be my
ambition to render her married life so happy, that, if possible, the
recollection of all she had suffered having passed away, her mind should
recover its natural tone, and even her lightness of heart, which the
chill atmosphere of unkindness for a time had blighted, should revive
again in the warm sunshine of affection.

Thus meditating, I arrived at Elm Lodge in a state of feeling containing
about equal parts of the intensely poetical and the very decidedly
hungry.

On the second morning after the events I have described, a note was
brought to me whilst I was dressing. With trembling fingers I tore open
the envelope, and read as follows:--

"I promised to inform you of what occurred on my ~292~~ return here, and
I must therefore do so, though what I have to communicate will only give
you pain. All that my fears pointed at has come to pass, and my
doom appears irrevocably sealed. Late on the evening of my return to
Barstone, Mr. Vernor and his nephew arrived. I shall never forget the
fee