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to regimen, had been pronounced by his physicians as necessary to his existence. In any attack of illness, lady Louisa was a most anxious and attentive nurse; but at other times she and sir Charles did not appear to live happily together. On the baronet's side, it was a state of polite indifference-on lady Louisa's, it seemed something more complicated and painful: it was the death of the heart-the disappointment of all its finer affections-it was esteem, admiration, love," to hatred turned," or rather, not to calm hatred, but to the irritating grief that preys on the proud and susceptible spirit, from the perpetual recurrence of injuries that wring its tenderest feelings. With the greater number of superficial observers who visited at Meadowscourt, sir Charles was the favourite; for the exchange of characters which had taken place between the lord and lady of the mansion extended to the most trifling particulars. While lady Louisa's mind, intent on important objects, was some

times unable to unbend with that facility and grace which so well become a female, sir Charles, who literally interfered with nothing, delighted his guests by his perfect urbanity, and the charms of a conversation in which an extensive knowledge of the world was mingled with the most correct taste in light and general literature.

Geraldine saw, in the plenitude of power with which lady Louisa was invested, that deserving woman was far from happy —that some secret sources of grief corroded her mind, and caused occasional starts of passion, and asperities of temper, which cast a cloud, while they lasted, over the virtues of one of the most excellent of human hearts. Geraldine respected, without knowing her sorrows: she even feared to inquire into them, lest a more open disclosure might compel her to withdraw the small portion of esteem she still retained for the man she was obliged to consider as her protector.

Our heroine rather tried to turn lady
Louisa's

Louisa's mind from irritating reflections, by seconding her, to the utmost of her abilities, in her interesting and praiseworthy pursuits.

In this number the comfortable establishment of Pendennis was not forgot. Pendennis had a nephew, the son of a brother who died in very distressed circumstances, and the establishment of this nephew was often the subject of his most serious cogitations. He had three nieces, too, sisters of the above-mentioned nephew; but he was not uneasy on their account-Olivia Pendennis, as he informed lady Louisa, being on the eve of marriage with a beneficed clergyman, who had agreed, for the first year, to take her sister Bridget to live with them. Diana, the other sister, had a prospect of being engaged as governess at the house of a gentleman of fortune near Exeter. But, as for Cobham Pendennis, it was easy to see which way his uncle's wishes pointed."How delighted Cobham would be with

VOL. I.

F

the

the sight of the academy at Mount Parnassus! Exactly to my nephew's taste.”

Lady Louisa plainly perceived that the imagination of Pendennis pictured his nephew, Cobham, on a seat, a little less elevated than his own, administering instruction and reproof to the docile tyroes of Glenartrey. She put the finishing stroke to Pendennis's felicity, by empowering him to send for this much-boasted relative, who, her ladyship added, she doubted not would supersede the necessity of any other instructor. Transported with this concession, Pendennis lost not another post in writing to his valued nephew, from whom he quickly received an answer, containing the following, rather unexpected, if not unwelcome intelligence.

"HONOURED UNCLE,

"Your inquiries respecting the health and welfare of my sisters and self are highly gratifying to us. In return, I

am

am sorry to be obliged to inform you, that the marriage of my sister Olivia with the reverend Dr. Godfrey is no longer likely to take place. I fancy the reverend doctor took offence at my sister's frequent excursions in the curricle of captain Vane, of the Hussars. Just as I hoped to have succeeded with the worthy doctor, in explaining to him that Olivia's indiscreet conduct was only the effect of a little harmless love of admiration, a fresh offence was given, by my sister Bridget's preaching a sermon to a very numerous and genteel congregation in the new Ebenezer chapel, lately opened by the excellent Zachary Mudge. Though many competent judges were of opinion that my sister performed as well as the excellent Zachary himself, the reverend doctor Godfrey, I am sorry to relate, flew into a very unbecoming kind of a passion: he inveighed bitterly against false teachers creeping into the fold, and women venturing to preach, in open contradiction to

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