ness."

SHAKESPEARE.

THERE is no saying whether the Doctor's system might not have been
resorted to had not Lady Juliana's wrath been for the present suspended
by an invitation to Altamont House. True, nothing could be colder than
the terms in which it was couched; but to that her Ladyship was
insensible, and would have been equally indifferent had she known that,
such as it was, she owed it more to the obstinacy of her son-in-law than
the affection of her daughter. The Duke of Altamont was one of those who
attach great ideas of dignity to always carrying their point; and though
he might sometimes be obliged to suspend his plans, he never had been
known to relinquish them. Had he settled in his own mind to tie his
neckcloth in a particular way, not all the eloquence of Cicero or the
tears of O'Neil would have induced him to alter it; and Adelaide, the
haughty, self-willed Adelaide, soon found that, of all yokes, the most
insupportable is the yoke of an obstinate fool. In the thousand trifling
occurances of domestic life (for his Grace was interested in all the
minutiae of his establishment), where good sense and good humour on
either side would have gracefully yielded to the other, there was a
perpetual contest for dominion, which invariably ended in Adelaide's
defeat. The Duke, indeed, never disputed, or reasoned, or even replied;
but the thing was done; till, at the end of six weeks, the Duchess of
Altamont most heartily hated and despised the man she had so lately
vowed to love and obey. On the present occasion his Grace certainly
appeared in the most amiable light in wishing to have Lady Juliana
invited to his house; but in fact it proceeded entirely from his
besetting sin, obstinacy. He had propose her accompanying her daughter
at the time of her marriage, and been overruled; but with all the
pertinacity of a little mind he had kept fast hold of the idea, merely
because it was his own, and he was now determined to have it put in
execution. In a postscript to the letter, and in the same cordial style,
the Duchess said something of a hope, that _if_ her mother did come to
town, Mary should accompany her; but this her Ladyship, to Mary's great
relief, declared should not be, although she certainly was very much at
a loss how to dispose of her. Mary timidly expressed her wish to be
permitted to return to Lochmarlie, and mentioned that her uncle and aunt
had repeatedly offered to come to Bath for her, if she m