engagements with Newton Forster would have some effect in preventing
this indirect suicide. She took an opportunity of confiding it to her
mother, who listened to her with astonishment.

"Isabel! what do I hear? What! that young man who calls here so often?
You, that can command a title, rank, and fashion, engage yourself to a
captain of an Indiaman! Recollect, Isabel, that now your poor father is
dead, I am your legal protector; and without my permission I trust you
have too much sense of filial duty to think of marrying. How you could
venture to form an engagement without consulting me is quite
astonishing! Depend upon it, I shall not give my consent; therefore,
think no more about it."

How often do we thus see people, who make no scruples of neglecting
their duties, as eagerly assert their responsibility, when it suits
their convenience.

Isabel might have retorted, but she did not. In few words, she gave her
mother to understand that she was decided, and then retired to dress for
a splendid ball, at which, more to please her mother than herself, she
had consented to be present.

It was the first party of any consequence to which Mrs Revel had been
invited. She considered it as her _re-entree_ into the fashionable
world, and the presentation of her daughter; she would not have missed
it for any consideration. That morning she had felt more pain than
usual, and had been obliged to have recourse to restoratives; but once
more to join the gay and fashionable throng--the very idea braced her
nerves, rendered her callous to suffering, and indifferent to disease.

"I think," said Mrs Revel to her maid--"I think," said she, panting,
"you may lace me a little closer, Martyn."

"Indeed, madam, the holes nearly meet; it will hurt your side."

"No, no, I feel no pain this evening--there, that will do."

The lady's maid finished her task, and left the room. Mrs Revel rouged
her wan cheeks, and, exhausted with fatigue and pain, tottered to an
easy chair, that she might recover herself a little before she went down
stairs.

In a quarter of an hour Isabel, who had waited for the services of
Martyn, entered her mother's room, to announce that she was ready. Her
mother, who was sitting in the chair, leaning backwards, answered her
not. Isabel went up to her, and looked her in the face--she was _dead_!

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

My dearest wife was like this maid,
And such my daughter might hav