THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER. (continued 2)

No wonder then, that, softened as he was by Agnes's application (though he deemed the scheme wild and impracticable), and afraid that he had treated her unkindly, he was pleased to have an opportunity of obliging her, without injuring himself, and that her request to the governors was strengthened by his representations: nor is it extraordinary that, alive as he always was to the opinion of everyone, he should dread seeing Agnes, after the reception which he had given her, more than she dreaded to appear before the board.

Agnes, who had borrowed of Fanny the dress of a respectable maid-servant, when summoned to attend the governors, entered the room with modest but dignified composure, prepared to expect contumely, but resolved to endure it as became a contrite heart.—But no contumely awaited her.

In the hour of her prosperity she had borne her faculties so meekly, and had been so careful never to humble any one by showing a consciousness of superiority, that she had been beloved even more than she had been admired; and hard indeed must the heart of that man have been, who could have rejoiced that she herself was humbled.

A dead nay a solemn silence took place on her entrance. Every one present beheld with surprise, and with stolen looks of pity, the ravages which remorse and anguish had made in her form, and the striking change in her apparel: for every one had often followed with delight her graceful figure through the dance, and gazed with admiration on the tasteful varieties of her dress; every one had listened with pleasure to the winning sound of her voice, and envied Fitzhenry the possession of such a daughter. As they now beheld her, these recollections forcibly occurred to them:—they agonized—they overcame them.—They thought of their own daughters, and secretly prayed Heaven to keep them from the voice of the seducer:—away went all their resolutions to receive Agnes with that open disdain and detestation which her crime deserved; the sight of her disarmed them; and not one amongst them had, for some moments, firmness enough to speak. At last, "Pray sit down, Miss Fitzhenry," said the president in a voice hoarse with emotion: "Here is a chair," added another: and Mr. Seymour, bowing as he did it, placed a seat for her near the fire.

Agnes, who had made up her mind to bear expected indignity with composure, was not proof against unexpected kindness; and, hastily turning to the window, she gave vent to her sensations in an agony of tears. But, recollecting the importance of the business on which she came, she struggled with her feelings; and on being desired by the president to explain to the board what she wanted, she began to address them in a faint and faltering voice: however, as she proceeded, she gained courage, remembering that it was her interest to affect her auditors, and make them enter warmly into her feelings and designs. She told her whole story, in as concise a manner as possible, from the time of her leaving Clifford to her rencontre with her father in the forest, and his being torn from her by the keepers; and when she was unable to go on, from the violence of her emotions, she had the satisfaction of seeing that the tears of her auditors kept pace with her own. When her narrative was ended, she proceeded thus:—

"I come now, gentlemen, to the reason why I have troubled you with this narration.—From the impression which the sight of me made on my father, I feel a certain conviction that, were I constantly with him, I might in time be able to restore him to that reason of which my guilt had deprived him. To effect this purpose, it is my wish to become a servant in this house: if I should not succeed in my endeavours; I am so sure he will have pleasure in seeing me, that I feel it my duty to be with him, even on that account; and, if there be any balm for a heart and conscience so wounded as mine, I must find it in devoting all my future days to alleviate, though I cannot cure, the misery which I have occasioned. And if," added she with affecting enthusiasm, "it should please Heaven to smile on my endeavours to restore him to reason, how exquisite will be my satisfaction in labouring to maintain him!"

To this plan, it is to be supposed, the governors saw more objection than Agnes did; but, though they rejected the idea of her being a servant in the house, they were not averse to giving her an opportunity of making the trial which she desired, if it were only to alleviate her evident wretchedness; and, having consulted the medical attendants belonging to the institution, they ordered that Agnes should be permitted two hours at a time, morning and evening, to see Fitzhenry. And she, who had not dared to flatter herself that she should obtain so much, was too full of emotion to show, otherwise than by incoherent expressions and broken sentences, her sense of the obligation.

"Our next care," observed the president, "must be, as friends of your poor father, to see what we can do for your future support."—"That, sir, I shall provide for myself," replied Agnes; "I will not eat the bread of idleness, as well as of shame and affliction, and shall even rejoice in being obliged to labour for my support, and that of my child,—happy, if, in fulfilling well the duties of a mother, I may make some atonement for having violated those of a daughter."

"But, Miss Fitzhenry," answered the president, "accept at least some assistance from us till you can find means of maintaining yourself."—"Never, never," cried Agnes: "I thank you for your kindness, but I will not accept it: nor do I need it. I have already accepted assistance from one kind friend, and merely because I should, under similar circumstances, have been hurt at having a gift of mine refused: but allow me to say that, from the wretchedness into which my guilt has plunged me, nothing hence-forward but my industry shall relieve me."

So saying, she curtsied to the gentlemen, and hastily withdrew, leaving them all deeply affected by her narrative, and her proposed expiatory plan of life, and ready to grant her their admiration, should she have resolution to fulfill her good intentions, after the strong impression which the meeting with her father in the forest had made on her mind should have been weakened by time and occupation.

Agnes hastened from the governors' room to put in force the leave which she had obtained, and was immediately conducted to Fitzhenry's cell. She found him with his back to the door, drawing with a piece of coal on the wall. As he did not observe her entrance, she had an opportunity of looking over his shoulder, and she saw that he had drawn the shape of a coffin, and was then writing on the lid the name of Agnes.

A groan which involuntarily escaped her made him turn round: at sight of her he started, and looked wildly as he had done in the forest: then shaking his head and sighing deeply, he resumed his employment, still occasionally looking back at Agnes; who, at length overcome by her feelings, threw herself on the bed beside him, and burst into tears.

Hearing her sobs, he immediately turned round again, and patting her cheek as he had done on their first meeting, said, "Poor thing! poor thing!" and fixing his eyes steadfastly on her face while Agnes turned towards him and pressed his hand to her lips, he gazed on her as before with a look of anxious curiosity; then, turning from her, muttered to himself, "She is dead, for all that."

Soon after, he asked her to take a walk with him; adding, in a whisper, "We will go find her grave;" and taking her under his arm, he led her to the garden, smiling on her from time to time, as if it gave him pleasure to see her; and sometimes laughing, as if at some secret satisfaction which he would not communicate. When they had made one turn round the garden, he suddenly stopped, and began singing—"Tears such as tender fathers shed," that affecting song of Handel's, which he used to delight to hear Agnes sing: "I can't go on," he observed, looking at Agnes; "can you?" as if there were in his mind some association between her and that song; and Agnes, with a bursting heart, took up the air where he left off.

Fitzhenry listened with restless agitation; and when she had finished, he desired her to sing it again. "But say the words first," he added: and Agnes repeated——

"Tears such as tender fathers shed Warm from my aged eyes descend, For joy, to think, when I am dead, My son will have mankind his friend."

"No, no," cried Fitzhenry with quickness, "'for joy to think, when I am dead, Agnes will have mankind her friend.' I used to sing it so; and so did she when I bade her. Oh! she sung it so well!—But she can sing it no more now, for she is dead; and we will go look for her grave."

Then he walked hastily round the garden, while Agnes, whom the words of this song, by recalling painful recollections, had almost deprived of reason, sat down on a bench, nearly insensible, till he again came to her, and, taking her hand, said in a hurried manner, "You will not leave me, will you?" On her answering No, in a very earnest and passionate manner, he looked delighted; and saying "Poor thing!" again gazed on her intently; and again Agnes's hopes that he would in time know her returned.——"Very pale, very pale!" cried Fitzhenry the next moment, stroking her cheek; "and she had such a bloom!—Sing again: for the love of God, sing again:"—and in a hoarse, broken voice Agnes complied. "She sung better than you," rejoined he when she had done:—"so sweet, so clear it was!—But she is gone!" So saying, he relapsed into total indifference to Agnes, and every thing around him—and again her new-raised hopes vanished.

The keeper now told her it was time for her to depart; and she mournfully arose: but, first seizing her father's hand, she leaned for a moment her head on his arm; then, bidding God bless him, walked to the door with the keeper. But on seeing her about to leave him, Fitzhenry ran after her, as fast as his heavy irons would let him, wildly exclaiming, "You shall not go—you shall not go."

Agnes, overjoyed at this evident proof of the pleasure her presence gave him, looked at the keeper for permission to stay; but as he told her it would be against the rules, she thought it more prudent to submit; and before Fitzhenry could catch hold of her in order to detain her by force, she ran through the house, and the grated door was closed on her.

"And this," said Agnes to herself, turning round to survey the melancholy mansion which she had left, while mingled sounds of groans, shrieks, shouts, laughter, and the clanking of irons, burst upon her ears, "this is the abode of my father! and provided for him by me!—This is the recompense bestowed on him by the daughter whom he loved and trusted, in return for years of unparalleled fondness and indulgence!"

The idea was too horrible; and Agnes, calling up all the energy of her mind, remembered the uselessness of regret for the past, but thought with pleasure on the advantages of amendment for the present and the future: and by the time she reached Fanny's door, her mind had recovered its sad composure.

Her countenance, at her return, was very different to what it had been at her departure. Hope animated her sunk eye, and she seemed full of joyful though distant expectations: nay, so much was she absorbed in pleasing anticipations, that she feebly returned the caresses of her child, who climbed up her knees to express his joy at seeing her; and even while she kissed his ruddy cheek, her eye looked beyond it with the open gaze of absence.

"I have seen him again," she cried, turning to Fanny; "and he almost knew me! He will know me entirely, in time; and next, he will know every thing; and then I shall be happy!"

Fanny, to whom Agnes had given no clue to enable her to understand this language, was alarmed for her intellects, till she explained her plans and her hopes; which Fanny, though she could not share in them, was too humane to discourage.

"But now," continued Agnes, "let us consult on my future means of gaining a livelihood;" and finding that Fanny, besides keeping a day-school, took in shawl-work, a considerable shawl manufacture being carried on in the town, it was settled that she would procure the same employment for Agnes; and that a small back room in Fanny's little dwelling should be fitted up for her use.

In the mean while the governors of the bedlam had returned to their respective habitations, with feelings towards Agnes very different to those with which they had assembled. But too prudent to make even a penitent sinner the subject of praise in their own families, they gave short, evasive answers to the inquiries that were made there.

Mr. Seymour, on the contrary, thought it his duty to relieve the generous and affectionate heart of his daughter, by a minute detail of what had passed at the meeting; but he had no opportunity of doing this when he first returned home, as he found there a large party assembled to dinner. Caroline, however, watched his countenance and manner: and seeing on the first an expression of highly-awakened feelings, and in the latter a degree of absence, and aversion to talking, which it always displayed whenever his heart had been deeply interested, she flattered herself that Agnes was the cause of these appearances, and hoped to hear of something to her advantage.

During dinner, a lady asked Caroline which of her young friends would accompany her to church, in the capacity of bride-maid. Caroline started, and turned pale at the question—for melancholy were the reflections which it excited in her mind. It had always been an agreement between her and Agnes, that whichever of the two was married first should have the other for her bride-maid; and the question was repeated before Caroline could trust her voice to answer it. "I shall have no bride-maids, but my sisters," she replied at length with a quivering lip; "I cannot; indeed I wish to have no other now." Then, looking at her father, she saw that his eyes were filled with tears; and unable to suppress, but wishing to conceal, his emotion, he abruptly left the room.

There is scarcely any human being whose heart has not taught him that we are never so compassionate and benevolent towards others, as when our own wishes are completely gratified—we are never so humble as then. This was the case with Mr. Seymour: he was about to marry his eldest daughter in a manner even superior to his warmest expectations, and his paternal care, therefore, was amply rewarded. But his heart told him that his care and his affection had not exceeded, perhaps not equalled, that of Fitzhenry; nor had the promise of his daughter's youth, fair as it was, ever equalled that of the unhappy Agnes: yet Caroline was going to aggrandize her family, and Agnes had disgraced hers. She was happy—Agnes miserable. He was the possessor of a large fortune, and all the comforts of life; and Fitzhenry was in a madhouse.

This contrast between their situations was forcibly recalled to his mind by the question addressed to Caroline; and, already softened by the interview of the morning, he could not support his feelings, but was obliged to hasten to his chamber to vent in tears and thanksgivings the mingled sensations of humility and gratitude. Caroline soon followed him; and heard with emotions as violent, her father's description of Agnes's narration, and her conduct before the governors.

"But it is not sufficient," said she, "that you tell me this: you must tell it wherever you hear the poor penitent's name mentioned, and avow the change which it has made in your sentiments towards her; you must be her advocate."

"Her advocate! What would the world say?"

"Just what you wish it to say. Believe me, my dear father, the world is in many instances like a spoiled child, who treats with contempt the foolish parent that indulges his caprices, but behaves with respect to those, who, regardless of his clamours, give the law to him, instead of receiving it."

"You speak from the untaught enthusiasm and confidence of youth, Caroline; but experience will teach you that no one can with impunity run counter to the opinions of the world."

"My experience has taught me that already: but, in this case, you do not seem to do the world justice. The world would blame you, and justly too, if, while talking of the unhappy Agnes, you should make light of her guilt: but why not, while you acknowledge that to be enormous, descant with equal justice on the deep sense of it which she entertains, and on the excellence of her present intentions? To this what can the world say, but that you are a just judge? And even suppose they should think you too lenient a one, will not the approbation of your own conscience be an ample consolation for such a condemnation? O my dear father! were you not one of the best and most unspoilable of men, your anxious attention to what the world will say of your actions, must long ere this have made you one of the worst."

"Enough, enough," cried Mr. Seymour, wounded self-love contending in his bosom with parental pride, for he had some suspicion that Caroline was right, "what would the world say, if it were to hear you schooling your father?"

"When the world hears me trying to exalt my own wisdom by doubting my father's, I hope it will treat me with the severity which I shall deserve."

Mr. Seymour clasped her to his bosom as she said this, and involuntarily exclaimed, "Oh! poor Fitzhenry!"—"And poor Agnes too!"—retorted Caroline, throwing her arms round his neck: "it will be my parting request, when I leave my paternal roof, that you will do all the justice you can to my once-honoured friend—and let the world say what it pleases."—"Well, well, I will indulge you by granting your request," cried Mr. Seymour; "or rather I will indulge myself." And then, contented with each other, they returned to the company.

A few days after this conversation Caroline's marriage took place, and was celebrated by the ringing of bells and other rejoicings. "What are the bells ringing for to-day?" said Agnes to Fanny, as she was eating her breakfast with more appetite than usual. Fanny hesitated; and then, in a peevish tone, replied, that she supposed they rang for Miss Caroline Seymour, as she was married that morning:—adding, "Such a fuss, indeed! such preparations! one would think nobody was ever married before!"

Yet, spitefully as Fanny spoke this, she had no dislike to the amiable Caroline; her pettishness proceeded merely from her love for Agnes. Just such preparations, just such rejoicings, she had hoped to see one day for the marriage of her dear young lady;—and though Agnes had not perceived it, Fanny had for the last two days shed many a tear of regret and mortification, while news of the intended wedding reached her ear on every side; and she had not courage to tell Agnes what she heard, lest the feelings of Agnes on the occasion should resemble hers, but in a more painful degree. "Caroline Seymour married!" cried Agnes, rising from her unfinished meal: "well married, I hope?"——"O yes, very well indeed—Mr. Seymour is so proud of the connexion!" "Thank God!" said Agnes fervently:—"May she be as happy as her virtues deserve!"—and then with a hasty step she retired to her own apartment.

It is certain that Agnes had a mind above the meanness of envy, and that she did not repine at the happiness of her friend; yet, while with tears trickling down her cheek she faltered out the words "Happy Caroline!—Mr. Seymour proud! Well may he be so!" her feelings were as bitter as those which envy excites. "Oh! my poor father! I once hoped—" added she; but, overcome with the acuteness of regret and remorse, she threw herself on the bed in speechless anguish.

Then the image of Caroline, as she last saw her, weeping for her misfortunes, and administering to her wants, recurred to her mind, and, in a transport of affection and gratitude, she took the paper that contained the gift from her bosom, kissed the blotted scrawl on the back of it, and prayed fervently for her happiness.

"But surely," cried she, starting up, and running into the next room to Fanny, "I should write a few lines of congratulation to the bride?" Fanny did not answer; indeed she could not; for the affectionate creature was drowned in tears, which Agnes well understood, and was gratified, though pained, to behold. At length, still more ashamed of her own weakness when she saw it reflected in another, Agnes gently reproved Fanny, telling her it seemed as if she repined at Miss Seymour's happiness.

"No," replied Fanny, "I only repine at your misery. Dear me! she is a sweet young lady, to be sure, but no more to be compared to you——"—"Hush! Fanny: 'tis I who am now not to be compared to her:—remember, my misery is owing to my guilt."—"It is not the less to be repined at on that account," replied Fanny.

To this remark, unconsciously severe, Agnes with a sigh assented; and, unable to continue the conversation in this strain, she again asked whether Fanny did not think she ought to congratulate the generous Caroline. "By all means," replied Fanny: but before she answered, Agnes had determined that it would be kinder in her not to damp the joy of Caroline by calling to her mind the image of a wretched friend. "True," she observed, "it would gratify my feelings to express the love and gratitude I bear her, and my self-love would exult in being recollected by her with tenderness and regret, even in the hour of her bridal splendour; but the gratification would only be a selfish one, and therefore I will reject it."

Having formed this laudable resolution, Agnes, after trying to compose her agitated spirits by playing with her child, who was already idolized by the faithful Fanny, bent her steps as usual to the cell of her father. Unfortunately for Agnes, she was obliged to pass the house of Mr. Seymour, and at the door she saw the carriages waiting to convey the bride and her train to the country seat of her mother-in-law. Agnes hurried on as fast as her trembling limbs could carry her; but, as she cast a hasty glance on the splendid liveries, and the crowd gazing on them, she saw Mr. Seymour bustling at the door, with all the pleased consequence of a happy parent in his countenance; and not daring to analyse her feelings, she rushed forward from the mirthful scene, and did not stop again till she found herself at the door of the bedlam.

But when there, and when, looking up at its grated windows, she contemplated it as the habitation of her father—so different to that of the father of Caroline—and beheld in fancy the woe-worn, sallow face of Fitzhenry, so unlike the healthy, satisfied look of Mr. Seymour—"I can't go in, I can't see him to-day," she faintly articulated, overcome with a sudden faintness—and, as soon as she could recover her strength, she returned home; and, shutting herself up in her own apartment, spent the rest of the day in that mournful and solitary meditation that "maketh the heart better."

It would no doubt have gratified the poor mourner to have known, that, surrounded by joyous and congratulating friends, Caroline sighed for the absent Agnes, and felt the want of her congratulations—"Surely she will write to me!" said she mentally, "I am sure she wishes me happy; and one of my greatest pangs at leaving my native place is, the consciousness that I leave her miserable."

The last words that Caroline uttered, as she bade adieu to the domestics, were, "Be sure to send after me any note or letter that may come." But no note or letter from Agnes arrived; and had Caroline known the reason, she would have loved her once happy friend the more.

The next day, earlier than usual, Agnes went in quest of her father. She did not absolutely flatter herself that he had missed her the day before, still she did not think it impossible that he might. She dared not, however, ask the question; but, luckily for her, the keeper told her, unasked, that Fitzhenry was observed to be restless, and looking out of the door of his cell frequently, both morning and evening, as if expecting somebody; and that at night, as he was going to bed, he asked whether the lady had not been there.

"Indeed!" cried Agnes, her eyes sparkling with pleasure—"Where is he?—Let me see him directly." But, after the first joyful emotion which he always showed at seeing her had subsided, she could not flatter herself that his symptoms were more favourable than before.

The keeper also informed her that he had been thrown into so violent a raving fit, by the agitation he felt at parting with her the last time she was there, that she must contrive to slip away unperceived whenever she came: and this visit having passed away without any thing material occurring, Agnes contrived to make her escape unseen.

On her return she repeated to Fanny several times, with a sort of pathetic pleasure, the question her father had asked—"He inquired whether the lady had not been there;—think of that, Fanny:" while so incoherent was her language and so absent were her looks, that Fanny again began to fear her afflictions had impaired her reason.

After staying a few days with the new-married couple, Mr. Seymour returned home, Caroline having, before he left her, again desired him to be the friend of the penitent Agnes whenever he heard her unpityingly attacked; and an opportunity soon offered of gratifying his daughter's benevolence, and his own.

Mr. Seymour was drinking tea in a large party, when a lady, to whose plain, awkward, uninteresting daughters the once beautiful, graceful and engaging Agnes had formerly been a powerful rival, said, with no small share of malignity, "So!—fine impudence indeed!—I hear that good for nothing minx, Fitzhenry's daughter, is come to town: I wonder for my part she dares show her face here——But the assurance of these creatures is amazing."

"Aye, so it is," echoed from one lady to another. "But this girl must be a hardened wretch indeed," resumed Mrs. Macfiendy, the first speaker: "I suppose her fellow is tired of her, and she will be on the town soon——"

"In the church-yard rather," replied Mr. Seymour, whom a feeling of resentment at these vulgar expressions of female spite had hitherto kept silent:—"Miss Fitzhenry has lost all power of charming the eye of the libertine, and even the wish;—but she is an object whom the compassionate and humane cannot behold, or listen to, without the strongest emotion."

"No, to be sure," replied Mrs. Macfiendy bridling—"the girl had always a plausible tongue of her own—and as to her beauty, I never thought that was made for lasting.—What then you have seen her, Mr. Seymour? I wonder that you could condescend to look at such trash."

"Yes, madam, I have seen, and heard her too;—and if heart-felt misery, contrition, and true penitence, may hope to win favour in the sight of God, and expiate past offences, 'a ministering angel might this frail one be, though we lay howling.'"

"I lie howling, indeed!" screamed out Mrs. Macfiendy: "Speak for yourself, if you please, Mr. Seymour! for my part, I do not expect, when I go to another world, to keep such company as Miss Fitzhenry."

"If with the same measure you mete, it should be meted to you again, madam," replied Mr. Seymour, "I believe there is little chance in another world that you and Miss Fitzhenry will be visiting acquaintance." Then, bespeaking the attention of the company, he gave that account of Agnes, her present situation, and her intentions for the future, which she gave the governors; and all the company, save the outrageously virtuous mother and her daughters, heard it with as much emotion as he felt in relating it.—Exclamations of "Poor unfortunate girl! what a pity she should have been guilty!—But, fallen as she is, she is still Agnes Fitzhenry," resounded through the room.

Mrs. Macfiendy could not bear this in silence; but with a cheek pale, nay livid with malignity, and in a voice sharpened by passion, which at all times resembled the scream of a pea-hen, she exclaimed, "Well, for my part, some people may do any thing, yet be praised up to the skies; other people's daughters would not find such mercy. Before she went off, it was Miss Fitzhenry this, and Miss Fitzhenry that,—though other people's children could perhaps do as much, though they were not so fond of showing what they could do."

"No," cried one of the Miss Macfiendys, "Miss Fitzhenry had courage enough for any thing."

"True, child," resumed the mother; "and what did it end in? Why, in becoming a—what I do not choose to name."

"Fie, madam, fie!" cried Mr. Seymour: "Why thus exult over the fallen?"

"Oh! then you do allow her to be fallen?"

"She is fallen indeed, madam," said Mr. Seymour; "but, even in her proudest hour, Miss Fitzhenry never expressed herself towards her erring neighbours with unchristian severity;—but set you an example of forbearance, which you would do well to follow."

"She set me an example!" vociferated Mrs. Macfiendy—"she indeed! a creature!—I will not stay, nor shall my daughters, to hear such immoral talk. But 'tis as I said—some people may do any thing—for, wicked as she is, Miss Fitzhenry is still cried up as something extraordinary, and is even held up as an example to modest women."

So saying, she arose; but Mr. Seymour rose also, and said, "There is no necessity for your leaving the company, madam, as I will leave it: for I am tired of hearing myself so grossly misrepresented. No one abhors more than I do the crime of Miss Fitzhenry; and no one would more strongly object, for the sake of other young women, to her being again received into general company: but, at the same time, I will always be ready to encourage the penitent by the voice of just praise; and I feel delight in reflecting that, however the judges of this world may be fond of condemning her, she will one day appeal from them to a merciful and long-suffering judge."

Then, bowing respectfully to all but Mrs. Macfiendy, he withdrew, and gave her an opportunity of remarking that Mr. Seymour was mighty warm in the creature's defence. She did not know he was so interested about her; but she always thought him a gay man, and she supposed Miss Fitzhenry, as he called her, would be glad to take up with any thing now.

This speech, sorry am I to say, was received with a general and complaisant smile, though it was reckoned unjust; for there are few who have virtue and resolution enough to stand forward as champions for an absent and calumniated individual, if there be any thing ludicrous in the tale against him;—and the precise, careful, elderly Mr. Seymour, who was always shrinking from censure like a sensitive plant from the touch, accused by implication of being the private friend of the youthful Agnes, excited a degree of merry malice in the company not unpleasant to their feelings.

But, in spite of the efforts of calumny, the account Mr. Seymour had given of Agnes and her penitence became town talk; and, as it was confirmed by the other governors, every one, except the ferociously chaste, was eager to prevent Agnes from feeling pecuniary distress, by procuring her employment.

Still she was not supplied with work as fast as she executed it; for, except during the hours which she was allowed to spend with her father, she was constantly employed; and she even deprived herself of her accustomed portion of rest, and was never in bed before one, or after four.

In proportion as her business and profits increased, were her spirits elevated; but the more she gained, the more saving she became: she would scarcely allow herself sufficient food or clothing; and, to the astonishment of Fanny, the once generous Agnes appeared penurious, and a lover of money. "What does this change mean, my dear lady?" said Fanny to her one day.—"I have my reasons for it," replied Agnes coldly; then changed the subject: and Fanny respected her too much to urge an explanation.

But Agnes soon after began to wonder at an obvious change in Fanny. At first, when Agnes returned from visiting her father, Fanny used to examine her countenance: and she could learn from that, without asking a single question, whether Fitzhenry seemed to show any new symptoms of amendment, or whether his insanity still appeared incurable. If the former, Fanny, tenderly pressing her hand, would say, "Thank God!" and prepare their dinner or supper with more alacrity than usual: if the latter, Fanny would say nothing; but endeavour, by bringing little Edward to her, or by engaging her in conversation, to divert the gloom which she could not remove: and Agnes, though she took no notice of these artless proofs of affection, observed and felt them deeply; and as she drew near the house, she always anticipated them as one of the comforts of her home.

But, for some days past, Fanny had discontinued this mode of welcome so grateful to the feelings of Agnes, and seemed wholly absorbed in her own. She was silent, reserved, and evidently oppressed with some anxiety which she was studious to conceal. Once or twice, when Agnes came home rather sooner than usual, she found her in tears; and when she affectionately asked the reason of them, Fanny pleaded mere lowness of spirits as the cause.

But the eye of anxious affection is not easily blinded. Agnes was convinced that Fanny's misery had some more important origin; and, secretly fearing that it proceeded from her, she was on the watch for something to confirm her suspicions.

One day, as she passed through the room where Fanny kept her school, Agnes observed that the number of her scholars was considerably diminished; and when she asked Fanny where the children whom she missed were, there was a confusion and hesitation in her manner, while she made different excuses for their absence, which convinced Agnes that she concealed from her some unwelcome truth.

A very painful suspicion immediately darted across her mind, the truth of which was but too soon confirmed. A day or two after, while again passing through the school-room, she was attracted by the beauty of a little girl, who was saying her lesson; and, smoothing down her curling hair, she stooped to kiss her ruddy cheek: but the child, uttering a loud scream, sprang from her arms, and, sobbing violently, hid her face on Fanny's lap. Agnes, who was very fond of children, was much hurt by symptoms of a dislike so violent towards her, and urged the child to give a reason for such strange conduct: on which the artless girl owned that her mother had charged her never to touch or go near Miss Fitzhenry, because she was the most wicked woman that ever breathed.

Agnes heard this new consequence of her guilt with equal surprise and grief; but, on looking at Fanny, though she saw grief in her countenance, there was no surprise in it; and she instantly told her she was convinced that the loss of her scholars was occasioned by her having allowed her to reside with her. Fanny, bursting into tears, at last confessed that her suspicions were just; while to the shuddering Agnes she unfolded a series of persecutions which she had undergone from her employers, because she had declared her resolution of starving, rather than drive from her house her friend and benefactress.

Agnes was not long in forming her resolution; and the next morning, without saying a word to Fanny on the subject, she went out in search of a lodging for herself and child—as gratitude and justice forbade her to remain any longer with her persecuted companion.

But after having in vain tried to procure a lodging suitable to the low state of her finances, or rather to her saving plan, she hired a little cottage on the heath above the town, adjoining to that where she had been so hospitably received in the hour of her distress; and having gladdened the hearts of the friendly cottager and his wife by telling them that she was coming to be their neighbour, she went to break the unwelcome tidings to Fanny.

Passionate and vehement indeed was her distress at hearing that her young lady, as she still persisted to call her, was going to leave her: but her expostulations and tears were vain; and Agnes, after promising to see Fanny every day, took possession that very evening of her humble habitation.

But her intention in removing was frustrated by the honest indignation and indiscretion of Fanny. She loudly raved against the illiberality which had robbed her of the society of all that she held dear; and, as she told every one that Agnes left her by her own choice and not at her desire, those children who had been taken away because Agnes resided with her were not sent back to her on her removal. At last the number of her scholars became so small, that she gave up school-keeping, and employed herself in shawl-working only; while her leisure time was spent in visiting Agnes, or in inveighing, to those who would listen to her, against the cruelty that had driven her young lady from her house.

Fanny used to begin by relating the many obligations which her mother and she had received from Agnes and her father, and always ended with saying, "Yet to this woman, who saved me and mine from a workhouse, they wanted me to refuse a home when she stood in need of one! They need not have been afraid of her being too happy! Such a mind as hers can never be happy under the consciousness of having been guilty; and could she ever forget her crime, one visit to her poor father would make her remember it again."

Thus did Fanny talk, as I said before, to those who would listen to her; and there was one auditor who could have listened to her for ever on this subject, and who thought Fanny looked more lovely while expressing her affection for her penitent mistress, and pleading her cause with a cheek flushed with virtuous indignation, and eyes suffused with the tears of artless sensibility, than when, attended by the then happy Agnes, she gave her hand in the bloom of youth and beauty to the man of her heart.

This auditor was a respectable tradesman who lived in Fanny's neighbourhood, to whom her faithful attachment to Agnes had for some time endeared her; while Fanny, in return, felt grateful to him for entering with such warmth into her feelings, and for listening so patiently to her complaints; and it was not long before he offered her his hand.

To so advantageous an offer, and to a man so amiable, Fanny could make no objection; especially as Agnes advised her accepting the proposal. But Fanny declared to her lover that she would not marry him, unless he would promise that Agnes and her child should, whenever they chose, have a home with her. To this condition he consented; telling Fanny he loved her the better for making it; and Agnes had soon the satisfaction of witnessing the union of this worthy couple.

But they tried in vain to persuade Agnes to take up her residence with them. She preferred living by herself. To her, solitude was a luxury; as, while the little Edward was playing on the heath with the cottager's children, Agnes delighted to brood in uninterrupted silence over the soothing hope, the fond idea, that alone stimulated her to exertion, and procured her tranquillity. All the energies of her mind and body were directed to one end; and while she kept her eye steadfastly fixed on the future, the past lost its power to torture, and the present had some portion of enjoyment.

But were not these soothing reveries sometimes disturbed by the pangs of ill-requited love? and could she, who had loved so fondly as to sacrifice to the indulgence of her passion every thing that she held most dear, rise superior to the power of tender recollection, and at once tear from her heart the image of her fascinating lover? It would be unnatural to suppose that Agnes could entirely forget the once honoured choice of her heart, and the father of her child; or that, although experience had convinced her of its unworthiness, she did not sometimes contemplate, with the sick feelings of disappointed tenderness, the idol which her imagination had decked in graces all its own.

But these remembrances were rare. She oftener beheld him as he appeared before the tribunal of her reason—a cold, selfish, profligate, hypocritical deceiver, as the unfeeling destroyer of her hopes and happiness, and as one who, as she had learned from his own lips, when he most invited confidence, was the most determined to betray. She saw him also as a wretch so devoid of the common feelings of nature and humanity, that, though she left her apartments in London in the dead of night, and in the depth of a severe winter, an almost helpless child in her arms, and no visible protector near, he had never made a single inquiry concerning her fate, or that of his offspring.

At times the sensations of Agnes bordered on phrensy, when in this heartless, unnatural wretch she beheld the being for whom she had resigned the matchless comforts of her home, and destroyed the happiness and reason of her father. At these moments, and these only, she used to rush wildly forth in search of company, that she might escape from herself: but more frequently she directed her steps to the abode of the poor; to those who, in her happier hours, had been supported by her bounty, and who now were eager to meet her in her walks, to repay her past benefactions by a "God bless you, lady!" uttered in a tone of respectful pity.

When her return was first known to the objects of her benevolence, Agnes soon saw herself surrounded by them; and was, in her humble apparel and dejected state, followed by them with more blessings and more heart-felt respect than in the proudest hour of her prosperity.

"Thank God!" ejaculated Agnes, as she turned a glistening eye on her humble followers, "there are yet those whose eyes mine may meet with confidence. There are some beings in the world towards whom I have done my duty." But the next minute she recollected that the guilty flight which made her violate the duty which she owed her father, at the same time removed her from the power of fulfilling that which she owed the indigent; for it is certain that our duties are so closely linked together, that, as the breaking one pearl from a string of pearls hazards the loss of all, so the violation of one duty endangers the safety of every other.

"Alas!" exclaimed Agnes, as this melancholy truth occurred to her, "it is not for me to exult; for, even in the squalid, meagre countenances of these kind and grateful beings, I read evidences of my guilt—They looked up to me for aid, and I deserted them!"

In time, however, these acute feelings wore away; and Agnes, by entering again on the offices of benevolence and humanity towards the distressed, lost the consciousness of past neglect in that of present usefulness.

True, she could no longer feed the hungry or clothe the naked, but she could soften the pangs of sickness by expressing sympathy in its sufferings. She could make the nauseous medicine more welcome, if not more salutary, by administering it herself; for, though poor, she was still superior to the sufferers whom she attended: and it was soothing to them to see "such a lady" take so much trouble for those so much beneath her—and she could watch the live-long night by the bed of the dying, join in the consoling prayer offered by the lips of another, or, in her own eloquent and impassioned language, speak peace and hope to the departing soul.

These tender offices, these delicate attentions, so dear to the heart of every one, but so particularly welcome to the poor from their superiors, as they are acknowledgements of the relationship between them, and confessions that they are of the same species as themselves, and heirs of the same hopes, even those who bestow money with generous profusion do not often pay. But Agnes was never content to give relief unaccompanied by attendance: she had reflected deeply on the nature of the human heart, and knew that a participating smile, a sympathizing tear, a friendly pressure of the hand, the shifting of an uneasy pillow, and patient attention to an unconnected tale of twice-told symptoms, were, in the esteem of the indigent sufferer, of as great a value as pecuniary assistance.

Agnes, therefore, in her poverty, had the satisfaction of knowing that she was as consoling to the distressed, if not as useful, as she was in her prosperity; and, if there could be a moment when she felt the glow of exultation in her breast, it was when she left the habitation of indigence or sorrow, followed by the well-earned blessings of its inhabitants.

Had Agnes been capable of exulting in a consciousness of being revenged, another source of exultation might have been hers, provided she had ever deigned to inquire concerning her profligate seducer, whom she wrongfully accused of having neglected to make inquiries concerning her and her child. Agnes, two months after her return from London, saw in the paper an account of Clifford's marriage; and felt some curiosity to know what had so long retarded an union which, when she left town, was fixed for the Monday following; and Fanny observed an increased degree of gloom and abstraction in her appearance all that day. But, dismissing this feeling from her mind as unworthy of it, from that moment she resolved, if possible, to recall Clifford to her imagination, as one who, towards her, had been guilty not of perfidy and deceit only, but of brutal and unnatural neglect.

In this last accusation, however, as I said before, she was unjust. When Clifford awoke the next morning after his last interview with Agnes, and the fumes of the wine he had drunk the night before were entirely dissipated, he recollected, with great uneasiness, the insulting manner in which he had justified his intended marriage, and the insight into the baseness of his character which his unguarded confessions had given to her penetration.

The idea of having incurred the contempt of Agnes was insupportable. Yet, when he recollected the cold, calm, and dignified manner in which she spoke and acted when he bade her adieu, he was convinced that he had taught her to despise him; and, knowing Agnes, he was also certain that she must soon cease to love the man whom she had once learned to despise.

"But I will go to her directly," exclaimed he to himself, ringing his bell violently; "and I will attribute my infernal folly to drunkenness." He then ordered his servant to call a coach, finding himself too languid, from his late intemperance, to walk; and was just going to step into it when he saw Mrs. Askew pale and trembling, and heard her, in a faltering voice, demand to see him in private for a few minutes.

I shall not attempt to describe his rage and astonishment when he heard of the elopement of Agnes. But these feelings were soon followed by those of terror for her safety and that of his child; and his agitation for some moments was so great as to deprive him of the power of considering how he should proceed, in order to hear some tidings of the fugitives, and endeavour to recall them.

It was evident that Agnes had escaped the night before, because a servant, sitting up for a gentleman who lodged in the house, was awakened from sleep by the noise which she made in opening the door; and, running into the hall, she saw the skirt of Agnes's gown as she shut it again; and looking to see who was gone out, she saw a lady, who she was almost certain was Miss Fitzhenry, running down the street with great speed. But to put its being Agnes beyond all doubt, she ran up to her room, and, finding the door open, went in, and could see neither her nor her child.

To this narration Clifford listened with some calmness; but when Mrs. Askew told him that Agnes had taken none of her clothes with her, he fell into an agony amounting to phrensy, and exclaiming, "Then it must be so—she has destroyed both herself and the child!" his senses failed him, and he dropped down insensible on the sofa. This horrible probability had occurred to Mrs. Askew; and she had sent servants different ways all night, in order to find her if she were still in existence, that she might spare Clifford, if possible, the pain of conceiving a suspicion like her own.

Clifford was not so fortunate as to remain long in a state of unconsciousness, but soon recovered to a sense of misery and unavailing remorse. At length he recollected that a coach set off that very night for her native place, from the White-horse Cellar, and that it was possible that she might have obtained a lodging the night before, where she meant to stay till the coach was ready to set off the following evening. He immediately went to Piccadilly, to see whether places for a lady and child had been taken,—but no such passengers were on the list. He then inquired whether a lady and child had gone from that inn the night before in the coach that went within a few miles of the town of ——. But, as Agnes had reached the inn just as the coach was setting off, no one belonging to it, but the coachman, knew that she was a passenger.

"Well, I flatter myself," said Clifford to Mrs. Askew, endeavouring to smile, "that she will make her appearance here at night, if she do not come to-day; and I will not stir from this spot till the coach set off, and will even go in it some way, to see whether it do not stop to take her up on the road."

This resolution he punctually put in practice. All day Clifford was stationed at a window opposite to the inn, or in the book-keeper's office; but night came, the coach was ready to set off, and still no Agnes appeared. However, Clifford, having secured a place, got in with the other passengers, and went six miles or more before he gave up the hope of hearing the coachman ordered to stop, in the soft voice of Agnes.

At last, all expectation failed him; and, complaining of a violent headache, he desired to be set down, sprang out of the carriage, and relieved the other passengers from a very restless and disagreeable companion: and Clifford, in a violent attack of fever, was wandering on the road to London, in hopes of meeting Agnes, at the very time when his victim was on the road to her native place, in company with her unhappy father.

By the time Clifford reached London he was bordering on a state of delirium; but had recollection enough to desire his confidential servant to inform his father of the state in which he was, and then take the road to ——, and ask at every inn on the road whether a lady and child (describing Agnes and little Edward) had been there. The servant obeyed; and the anxious father, who had been informed of the cause of his son's malady, soon received the following letter from Wilson, while he was attending at his bedside:

"My Lord,

"Sad news of Miss Fitzhenry and the child; and reason to fear they both perished with cold. For, being told at one of the inns on this road that a young woman and child had been found frozen to death last night, and carried to the next town to be owned, I set off for there directly: and while I was taking a drap of brandy to give me spirits to see the bodies, for a qualm came over me when I thought of what can't be helped, and how pretty and good-natured and happy she once was, a woman came down with a silk wrapper and a shawl that I knew belonged to the poor lady, and said the young woman found dead had those things on. This was proof positive, my lord,—and it turned me sick. Still it is better so than self-murder; so my master had best know it, I think; and humbly hoping your lordship will think so too, I remain your lordship's

"Most humble servant to command, "J. Wilson.

"P.S. If I gain more particulars shall send them."

Dreadful as the supposed death of Agnes and her child appeared to the father of Clifford, he could not be sorry that so formidable a rival to his future daughter-in-law was no longer to be feared; and as Clifford, in the ravings of his fever, was continually talking of Agnes as self-murdered, and the murderer of her child, and of himself as the abandoned cause; and as that idea seemed to haunt and terrify his imagination, he thought with his son's servant that he had better take the first opportunity of telling Clifford the truth, melancholy as it was. And taking advantage of a proper opportunity, he had done so before he received this second letter from Wilson:

"My Lord,

"It was all fudge;—Miss Fitzhenry is alive, and alive like, at ——. She stopped at an inn on the road and parted with her silk coat and shawl for some things she wanted, and a hussey of a chambermaid stole them and went off in the night with them and her little by-blow:—but justice overtakes us sooner or later. I suppose his honour, my master, will be cheery at this;—but, as joy often distracts as much as grief, they say, though I never believed it, I take it you will not tell him this good news hand-over-head,—and am

"Your Lordship's "Most humble to command, "J. Wilson.

"P.S. I have been to ——, and have heard for certain Miss F. and her child are there."

His lordship was even more cautious than Wilson wished him to be; for he resolved not to communicate the glad tidings to Clifford, cautiously or incautiously, as he thought there would be no chance of his son's fulfilling his engagements with Miss Sandford, if he knew Agnes was living: especially as her flight and her supposed death had proved to Clifford how necessary she was to his happiness. Nay, he went still further; and resolved that Clifford should never know, if he could possibly help it, that the report of her death was false.

How to effect this was the difficulty; but wisely conceiving that Wilson was not inaccessible to a bribe, he offered him so much a-year, on condition of his suffering his master to remain convinced of the truth of the story that Agnes and her child had perished in the snow, and of intercepting all letters which he fancied came from Agnes; telling him at the same time, that if ever he found he had violated the conditions, the annuity should immediately cease.

To this Wilson consented; and, when Clifford recovered, he made his compliance with the terms more easy, by desiring Wilson, and the friends to whom his connection with Agnes had been known, never to mention her name in his presence again, if they valued his health and reason, as the safety of both depended on his forgetting a woman of whom he had never felt the value sufficiently till he had lost her for ever.

Soon after, he married;—and the disagreeable qualities of his wife made him recollect, with more painful regret, the charms and virtues of Agnes. The consequence was that he plunged deeper than ever into dissipation, and had recourse to intoxication in order to banish care and disagreeable recollections;—and, while year after year passed away in fruitless expectation of a child to inherit the estate and the long-disputed title, he remembered, with agonizing regrets, the beauty of his lost Edward; and reflected that, by refusing to perform his promises to the injured Agnes, he had deprived himself of the heir that he so much coveted, and of a wife who would have added dignity to the title which she bore, and been the delight and ornament of his family.

Such were the miserable feelings of Clifford,—such the corroding cares that robbed his mind of its energy, and his body of health and vigour. Though courted, caressed, flattered, and surrounded by affluence and splendour, he was disappointed and self-condemned. And while Agnes, for the first time condemning him unjustly, attributed his silence and neglect of her and her offspring to a degree of indifference and hard-heartedness at which human nature shudders, Clifford was feeling all the horrors of remorse, without the consolations of repentance.

I have before observed, that one idea engrossed the mind and prompted the exertions of Agnes;—and this was the probable restoration of her father to reason.—"Could I but once more hear him call me by my name, and bless me with his forgiveness, I should die in peace; and something within me tells me that my hopes will not be in vain: and who knows but we may pass a contented, if not a happy life together, yet?—So toil on, toil on, Agnes, and expect the fruit of thy labours."

These words she was in the habit of repeating not only to Fanny and her next-door neighbours (whom she had acquainted with her story), but to herself as she sat at work or traversed the heath. Even in the dead of night she would start from a troubled sleep, and repeating these words, they would operate as a charm on her disturbed mind; and as she spoke the last sentence, she would fall into a quiet slumber, from which she awoke the next morning at day-break to pursue with increased alacrity the labours of the day.

Meanwhile Agnes and her exemplary industry continued to engage the attention and admiration of the candid and liberal in the town of ——.

Mr. Seymour, who did not venture to inquire concerning her of Fanny while she lived at her house, now often called there to ask news of Agnes and her employments; and his curiosity was excited to know to what purpose she intended to devote the money earned with so much labour, and hoarded with such parsimonious care.

But Fanny was as ignorant on this subject as himself; and the only new information which she could give him was, that Agnes had begun to employ herself in fancy-works, in order to increase her gains; and that it was her intention soon to send little Edward (then four years old) to town to offer artificial flowers, painted needle-books, work-bags, &c. at the doors of the opulent and humane.

Nor was it long before this design was put in execution; and Mr. Seymour had the satisfaction of buying all the lovely boy's first cargo himself, for presents to his daughters. The little merchant returned to his anxious mother, bounding with delight, not at the good success of his first venture, for its importance he did not understand, but at the kindness of Mr. Seymour, who had met him on the road, conducted him to his house, helped his daughters to load his pockets with cakes, and put in his basket, in exchange for his merchandize, tongue, chicken, and other things to carry home to his mother.

Agnes heard the child's narration with more pleasure than she had for some time experienced.—"They do not despise me, then," said she; "they even respect me too much to offer me pecuniary aid, or presents of any kind but in a way that cannot wound my feelings."

But this pleasure was almost immediately checked by the recollection, that he whose wounded spirit would have been soothed by seeing her once more an object of delicate attention and respect, and for whose sake alone she could now ever be capable of enjoying them, was still unconscious of her claims to it, and knew not that they were so generally acknowledged. In the words of Jane de Montfort she could have said,

"He to whose ear my praise most welcome was, Hears it no more!"

"But I will hope on," Agnes used to exclaim as these thoughts occurred to her; and again her countenance assumed the wild expression of a dissatisfied but still expecting spirit.

Three years had now elapsed since Agnes first returned to her native place. "The next year," said Agnes to Fanny with unusual animation, "cannot fail of bringing forth good to me. You know that, according to the rules of the new bedlam, a patient is to remain five years in the house: at the end of that time, if not cured, he is to be removed to the apartments appropriated to incurables, and kept there for life, his friends paying a certain annuity for his maintenance; or he is, on their application, to be returned to their care—"—"And what then?" said Fanny, wondering at the unusual joy that animated Agnes's countenance. "Why then," replied she, "as my father's time for being confined expires at the end of the next year, he will either be cured by that time, or he will be given up to my care; and then, who knows what the consequences may be!"—"What indeed!" returned Fanny, who foresaw great personal fatigue and anxiety, if not danger, to Agnes in such a plan, and was going to express her fears and objections; but Agnes, in a manner overpoweringly severe, desired her to be silent, and angrily withdrew.

Soon after, Agnes received a proof of being still dear to her friend Caroline; which gave her a degree of satisfaction amounting even to joy.

Mr. Seymour, in a letter to his daughter, had given her an account of all the proceedings of Agnes, and expressed his surprise at the eagerness with which she laboured to gain money, merely, as it seemed, for the sake of hoarding it, as she had then, and always would have, only herself and child to maintain; as it was certain that her father would be allowed to continue, free of all expenses, an inhabitant of an asylum which owed its erection chiefly to his benevolent exertions.

But Caroline, to whom the mind of Agnes was well known, and who had often contemplated with surprise and admiration her boldness in projecting, her promptness in deciding, and her ability in executing the projects which she had formed; and above all that sanguine temper which led her to believe probable, what others only conceived to be possible,—found a reason immediately for the passion of hoarding which seemed to have taken possession of her friend; and, following the instant impulse of friendship and compassion, she sent Agnes the following letter, in which was inclosed a bank note to a considerable amount.

"I have divined your secret, my dear Agnes. I know why you are so anxious to hoard what you gain with such exemplary industry. In another year your father will have been the allotted time under the care of the medical attendants in your part of the world; and you are hoarding that you may be able, when that time comes, to procure for him elsewhere the best possible advice and assistance. Yes, yes, I know I am right:—therefore, lest your own exertions should not, in the space of a twelvemonth, be crowned with sufficient success, I conjure you, by our long friendship, to appropriate the inclosed to the purport in question; and should the scheme which I impute to you be merely the creature of my own brain, as it is a good scheme, employ the money in executing it.

"To silence all your scruples, I assure you that my gift is sanctioned by my husband and my father, who join with me in approbation of your conduct, and in the most earnest wishes that you may receive the reward of it in the entire restoration of your afflicted parent. Already have the candid and enlightened paid you their tribute of recovered esteem.

"It is the slang of the present day, if I may be allowed this vulgar but forcible expression, to inveigh bitterly against society for excluding from its circle, with unrelenting rigour, the woman who has once transgressed the salutary laws of chastity; and some brilliant and persuasive, but in my opinion mistaken, writers of both sexes have endeavoured to prove that many an amiable woman has been for ever lost to virtue and the world, and become the victim of prostitution, merely because her first fault was treated with ill-judging and criminal severity.

"This assertion appears to me to be fraught with mischief; as it is calculated to deter the victim of seduction from penitence and amendment, by telling her that she would employ them in her favour in vain. And it is surely as false as it is dangerous. I know many instances, and it is fair to conclude that the experience of others is similar to mine, of women restored by perseverance in a life of expiatory amendment to that rank in society, which they had forfeited by one false step, while their fault has been forgotten in their exemplary conduct as wives and mothers.

"But it is not to be expected that society should open its arms to receive its prodigal children till they have undergone a long and painful probation,—till they have practised the virtues of self-denial, patience, fortitude, and industry. And she whose penitence is not the mere result of wounded pride and caprice, will be capable of exerting all these virtues, in order to regain some portion of the esteem which she has lost. What will difficulties and mortifications be to her? Keeping her eye steadily fixed on the end which she has in view, she will bound lightly over them all; nor will she seek the smiles of the world, till, instead of receiving them as a favour, she can demand them as a right.

"Agnes, my dear Agnes, do you not know the original of the above picture? You, by a life of self-denial, patience, fortitude, and industry, have endeavoured to atone for the crime which you committed against Society; and I hear her voice saying, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee!' and ill befall the hand that would uplift the sacred pall which penitence and amendment have thrown over departed guilt!"

Such was the letter of Caroline:—a letter intended to speak peace and hope to the heart of Agnes; to reconcile the offender to herself, and light up her dim eye with the beams of self-approbation. Thus did she try to console her guilty and unhappy friend in the hour of her adversity and degradation. But Caroline had given a still greater proof of the sincerity of her friendship:—she had never wounded the feelings, or endeavoured to mortify the self-love of Agnes in the hour of her prosperity and acknowledged superiority: she had seen her attractions, and heard her praises, without envy; nor ever with seeming kindness but real malignity related to her, in the accents of pretended wonder and indignation, the censures which she had incurred, or the ridicule which she had excited,—but in every instance she had proved her friendship a memorable exception to what are sarcastically termed the friendships of women.

"Yes,—she has indeed divined my secret," said Agnes when she had perused the letter, while tears of tenderness trickled down her cheeks, "and she deserves to assist me in procuring means for my poor father's recovery—an indulgence which I should be jealous of granting to any one else, except you, Fanny," she added, seeing on Fanny's countenance an expression of jealousy of this richer friend; "and on the strength of this noble present," looking with a smile at her darned and pieced, though neat, apparel, "I will treat myself with a new gown."—"Not before it was wanted," said Fanny peevishly.—"Nay," replied Agnes with a forced smile, "surely I am well dressed enough for a runaway daughter. 'My father loved to see me fine,' as poor Clarissa says, and had I never left him, I should not have been forced to wear such a gown as this: but, Fanny, let me but see him once more capable of knowing me, and of loving me, if it be possible for him to forgive me," added she in a faltering voice, "and I will then, if he wishes it, be fine again, though I work all night to make myself so."

"My dear, dear lady," said Fanny sorrowfully, "I am sure I did not mean any thing by what I said; but you have such a way with you, and talk so sadly!—Yet, I can't bear, indeed I can't, to see such a lady in a gown not good enough for me; and then to see my young master no better dressed than the cottager's boys next door;—and then to hear them call master Edward little Fitzhenry, as if he was not their betters;—I can't bear it,—it does not signify talking, I can't bear to think of it."

"How, then," answered Agnes in a solemn tone, and grasping her hand as she spoke, "How can I bear to think of the guilt which has thus reduced so low both me and my child? O! would to God my boy could exchange situation with the children whom you think his inferiors! I have given him life, indeed, but not one legal claim to what is necessary to the support of life, except the scanty pittance which I might, by a public avowal of my shame, wring from his father."

"I would beg my bread with him through the streets before you should do that," hastily exclaimed Fanny; "and, for the love of God, say no more on this subject!—He is my child, as well as yours," she continued, snatching little Edward to her bosom, who was contentedly playing with his top at the door; and Agnes, in contemplating the blooming graces of the boy, forgot that he was an object of compassion.

The next year passed away as the former had done; and at the end of it, Fitzhenry being pronounced incurable, but perfectly quiet and harmless, Agnes desired, in spite of the advice and entreaties of the governors, that he might be delivered up to her, that she might put him under the care of Dr. W——.

Luckily for Agnes, the assignees of her father recovered a debt of a hundred pounds, which had long been due to him; and this sum they generously presented to Agnes, in order to further the success of her last hope.

On the day fixed for Fitzhenry's release, Agnes purchased a complete suit of clothes for him, such as he used to wear in former days, and dressed herself in a manner suited to her birth, rather than her situation; then set out in a post-chaise, attended by the friendly cottager, as it was judged imprudent for her to travel with her father alone, to take up Fitzhenry at the bedlam, while Fanny was crying with joy to see her dear lady looking like herself again, and travelling like a gentlewoman.

But the poor, whom gratitude and affection made constantly observant of the actions of Agnes, were full of consternation, when some of them heard, and communicated to the others, that a post-chaise was standing at Miss Fitzhenry's door. "O dear! she is going to leave us again; what shall we do without her?" was the general exclamation; and when Agnes came out to enter her chaise, she found it surrounded by her humble friends lamenting and inquiring, though with cautious respect, whether she ever meant to come back again. "Fanny will tell you every thing," said Agnes, overcome with grateful emotion at observing the interest which she excited. Unable to say more, she waved her hand as a token of farewell to them, and the chaise drove off.

"Is miss Fitzhenry grown rich again?" was the general question addressed to Fanny; and I am sure it was a disinterested one, and that, at the moment, they asked it without a view to their profiting by her change of situation, and merely as anxious for her welfare;—and when Fanny told them whither and wherefore Agnes was gone, could prayers, good wishes and blessings have secured success to the hopes of Agnes, her father, even as soon as she stopped at the gate of the bedlam, would have recognised and received her with open arms. But when she arrived, she found Fitzhenry as irrational as ever, though delighted to hear that he was going to take a ride with "the lady" as he always called Agnes; and she had the pleasure of seeing him seat himself beside her with a look of uncommon satisfaction. Nothing worth relating happened on the road. Fitzhenry was very tractable, except at night, when the cottager, who slept in the same room with him, found it difficult to make him keep in bed, and was sometimes forced to call Agnes to his assistance: at sight of her he always became quiet, and obeyed her implicitly.

The skilful and celebrated man to whom she applied received her with sympathizing kindness, and heard her story with a degree of interest and sensibility peculiarly grateful to the afflicted heart. Agnes related with praiseworthy ingenuousness the whole of her sad history, judging it necessary that the doctor should know the cause of the malady for which he was to prescribe.

It was peculiarly the faculty of Agnes to interest in her welfare those with whom she conversed; and the doctor soon experienced a more than ordinary earnestness to cure a patient so interesting from his misfortunes, and recommended by so interesting a daughter. "Six months," said he, "will be a sufficient time of trial; and in the mean while you shall reside in a lodging near us." Fitzhenry then became an inmate of the doctor's house; Agnes took possession of apartments in the neighbourhood; and the cottager returned to ——.

The ensuing six months were passed by Agnes in the soul-sickening feeling of hope deferred: and, while the air of the place agreed so well with her father that he became fat and healthy in his appearance, anxiety preyed on her delicate frame, and made the doctor fear that, when he should be forced to pronounce his patient beyond his power to cure, she would sink under the blow, unless the hope of being still serviceable to her father should support her under its pressure. He resolved, therefore, to inform her, in as judicious and cautious a manner as possible, that he saw no prospect of curing the thoroughly-shattered intellect of Fitzhenry.

"I can do nothing for your father," said he to Agnes (when he had been under his care six months), laying great stress on the word I;——(Agnes, with a face of horror, started from her seat, and laid her hand on his arm)——"but you can do a great deal."

"Can I? can I?" exclaimed Agnes, sobbing convulsively.—"Blessed hearing! But the means—the means?"

"It is very certain," he replied, "that he experiences great delight when he sees you, and sees you too employed in his service;—and when he lives with you, and sees you again where he has been accustomed to see you——"

"You advise his living with me, then?" interrupted Agnes with eagerness.

"I do, most strenuously," replied the doctor.

"Blessings on you for those words!" answered Agnes: "they said you would oppose it. You are a wise and a kind-hearted man."

"My dear child," rejoined the doctor, "when an evil can't be cured, it should at least be alleviated."

"You think it can't be cured, then?" again interrupted Agnes.

"Not absolutely so:—I know not what a course of medicine, and living with you as much in your old way as possible, may do for him. Let him resume his usual habits, his usual walks, live as near your former habitation as you possibly can; let him hear his favourite songs, and be as much with him as you can contrive to be; and if you should not succeed in making him rational again, you will at least make him happy."

"Happy!—I make him happy, now!" exclaimed Agnes, pacing the room in an agony:—"I made him happy once!—but now!——"

"You must hire some one to sleep in the room with him," resumed the doctor.

"No, no," cried Agnes impatiently;—"no one shall wait on him but myself;—I will attend him day and night."

"And should your strength be worn out by such incessant watching, who would take care of him then?—Remember, you are but mortal."—Agnes shook her head, and was silent.—"Besides, the strength of a man may sometimes be necessary; and, for his sake as well as yours, I must insist on being obeyed."

"You shall be obeyed," said Agnes mournfully.

"Then now," rejoined he, "let me give you my advice relative to diet, medicine, and management."—This he did in detail, as he found Agnes had a mind capacious enough to understand his system; and promising to answer her letters immediately, whenever she wrote to him for advice, he took an affectionate farewell of her; and Agnes and her father, accompanied by a man whom the doctor had procured for the purpose, set off for ——.

Fanny was waiting at the cottage with little Edward to receive them,—but the dejected countenance of Agnes precluded all necessity of asking concerning the state of Fitzhenry. Scarcely could the caresses of her child, and the joy which he expressed at seeing her, call a smile to her lips; and as she pressed him to her bosom, tears of bitter disappointment mingled with those of tenderness.

In a day or two after, Agnes, in compliance with the doctor's desire, hired a small tenement very near the house in which they formerly lived; and in the garden of which, as it was then empty, they obtained leave to walk. She also procured a person to sleep in the room with her father, instead of the man who came with them; and he carried back a letter from her to the doctor, informing him that she had arranged every thing according to his directions.

It was a most painfully pleasing sight to behold the attention of Agnes to Fitzhenry. She knew that it was not in her power to repair the enormous injury which she had done him, and that all she could now do was but a poor amends; still it was affecting to see how anxiously she watched his steps whenever he chose to wander alone from home, and what pains she took to make him neat in his appearance, and cleanly in his person. Her child and herself were clothed in coarse apparel, but she bought for her father everything of the best materials; and, altered as he was, Fitzhenry still looked like a gentleman.

Sometimes he seemed in every respect so like himself, that Agnes, hurried away by her imagination, would, after gazing on him some minutes, start from her seat, seize his hand, and, breathless with hope, address him as if he were a rational being,—when a laugh of vacancy, or a speech full of the inconsistency of phrensy, would send her back on her chair again, with a pulse quickened, and a cheek flushed with the fever of disappointed expectation.

However, he certainly was pleased with her attentions,—but, alas! he knew not who was the bestower of them: he knew not that the child, whose ingratitude or whose death he still lamented in his ravings in the dead of night, was returned to succour, to soothe him, and to devote herself entirely to his service. He heard her, but he knew her not; he saw her, but in her he was not certain that he beheld his child: and this was the pang that preyed on the cheek and withered the frame of Agnes: but she persisted to hope, and patiently endured the pain of to-day, expecting the joy of to-morrow; nor did her hopes always appear ill-founded.

The first day that Agnes led him to the garden once his own, he ran through every walk with eager delight; but he seemed surprised and angry to see the long grass growing in the walks, and the few flowers that remained choked up with weeds,—and began to pluck up the weeds with hasty violence.

"It is time to go home," said Agnes to him just as the day began to close in; and Fitzhenry immediately walked to the door which led into the house, and, finding it locked, looked surprised: then, turning to Agnes, he asked her if she had not the key in her pocket; and on her telling him that that was not his home, he quitted the house evidently with great distress and reluctance, and was continually looking back at it, as if he did not know how to believe her.

On this little circumstance poor Agnes lay ruminating the whole night after, with joyful expectation; and she repaired to the garden at day-break, with a gardener whom she hired, to make the walks look as much as possible as they formerly did. But they had omitted to tie up some straggling flowers;—and when Agnes, Fanny and the cottager, accompanied Fitzhenry thither the next evening, though he seemed conscious of the improvement that had taken place, he was disturbed at seeing some gilliflowers trailing along the ground; and suddenly turning to Agnes he said, "Why do you not bind up these?"

To do these little offices in the garden, and keep the parterre in order, was formerly Agnes's employment. What delight, then, must these words of Fitzhenry, so evidently the result of an association in his mind between her and his daughter, have excited in Agnes! With a trembling hand and a glowing cheek she obeyed; and Fitzhenry, with manifest satisfaction, saw her tie up every straggling flower in the garden, while he eagerly followed her and bent attentively over her.

At last, when she had gone the whole round of the flower-beds, he exclaimed, "Good girl! good girl!" and putting his arms round her waist, suddenly kissed her cheek.

Surprise, joy, and emotion difficult to be defined, overcame the irritable frame of Agnes, and she fell senseless to the ground. But the care of Fanny soon recovered her again;—and the first question that she asked was, how her father (whom she saw in great agitation running round the garden) behaved when he saw her fall.

"He raised you up," replied Fanny, "and seemed so distressed! he would hold the salts to your nose himself, and would scarcely suffer me to do anything for you: but, hearing you mutter 'Father! dear father!' as you began to come to yourself, he changed colour, and immediately began to run round the garden, as you now see him."

"Say no more, say no more, my dear friend," cried Agnes; "it is enough. I am happy, quite happy;—it is clear that he knew me;—and I have again received a father's embrace!—Then his anxiety too while I was ill!—Oh! there is no doubt now that he will be quite himself in time."

"Perhaps he may," replied Fanny;—"but——"

"But! and perhaps!" cried Agnes pettishly;—"I tell you he will, he certainly will recover; and those are not my friends who doubt it." So saying, she ran hastily forward to meet Fitzhenry, who was joyfully hastening towards her, leaving Fanny grieved and astonished at her petulance. But few are the tempers proof against continual anxiety and the souring influence of still renewed and still disappointed hope; and even Agnes, the once gentle Agnes, if contradicted on this one subject, became angry and unjust.

But she was never conscious of having given pain to the feelings of another, without bitter regret and an earnest desire of healing the wound which she had made; and when, leaning on Fitzhenry's arm, she returned towards Fanny, and saw her in tears, she felt a pang severer than that which she had inflicted, and said every thing that affection and gratitude could dictate, to restore her to tranquillity again. Her agitation alarmed Fitzhenry; and, exclaiming "Poor thing!" he held the smelling-bottle, almost by force, to her nose, and seemed terrified lest she was going to faint again.

"You see, you see!" said Agnes triumphantly to Fanny; and Fanny, made cautious by experience, declared the conviction that her young lady must know more of all matters than she did.

But month after month elapsed, and no circumstances of a similar nature occurred to give new strength to the hopes of Agnes; however, she had the pleasure to see that Fitzhenry not only seemed to be attached to her, but pleased with little Edward.

She had indeed taken pains to teach him to endeavour to amuse her father,—but sometimes she had the mortification of hearing, when fits of loud laughter from the child reached her ear, "Edward was only laughing at grandpapa's odd faces and actions, mamma:" and having at last taught him that it was wicked to laugh at such things, because his grandfather was not well when he distorted his face, her heart was nearly as much wrung by the pity which he expressed; for, whenever these occasional slight fits of phrensy attacked Fitzhenry, little Edward would exclaim, "Poor grandpapa! he is not well now;—I wish we could make him well, mamma!" But, on the whole, she had reason to be tolerably cheerful.

Every evening, when the weather was fine, Agnes, holding her father's arm, was seen taking her usual walk, her little boy gamboling before them; and never, in their most prosperous hours, were they met with curtsies more low, or bows more respectful, than on these occasions; and many a one grasped with affectionate eagerness the meagre hand of Fitzhenry, and the feverish hand of Agnes; for even the most rigid hearts were softened in favour of Agnes, when they beheld the ravages which grief had made in her form, and gazed on her countenance, which spoke in forcible language the sadness yet resignation of her mind. She might, if she had chosen it, have been received at many houses where she had formerly been intimate; but she declined it, as visiting would have interfered with the necessary labours of the day, with her constant attention to her father, and with the education of her child. "But when my father recovers," said she to Fanny, "as he will be pleased to find that I am not deemed wholly unworthy of notice, I shall have great satisfaction in visiting with him."

To be brief:—Another year elapsed, and Agnes still hoped; and Fitzhenry continued the same to every eye but hers:—she every day fancied that his symptoms of returning reason increased, and no one of her friends dared to contradict her. But in order, if possible, to accelerate his recovery, she had resolved to carry him to London, to receive the best advice that the metropolis afforded, when Fitzhenry was attacked by an acute complaint which confined him to his bed. This event, instead of alarming Agnes, redoubled her hopes. She insisted that it was the crisis of his disorder, and expected that health and reason would return together. Not for one moment therefore would she leave his bedside; and she would allow herself neither food nor rest, while with earnest attention she gazed on the fast sinking eyes of Fitzhenry, eager to catch in them an expression of returning recognition.

One day, after he had been sleeping some time, and she, as usual, was attentively watching by him, Fitzhenry slowly and gradually awoke; and, at last, raising himself on his elbow, looked round him with an expression of surprise, and, seeing Agnes, exclaimed, "My child! are you there? Gracious God! is this possible?"

Let those who have for years been pining away life in fruitless expectation, and who see themselves at last possessed of the long-desired blessing, figure to themselves the rapture of Agnes—"He knows me! He is himself again!" burst from her quivering lips, unconscious that it was too probable that restored reason was here the forerunner of dissolution.

"O my father!" she cried, falling on her knees, but not daring to look up at him—"O my father, forgive me, if possible!—I have been guilty, but I am penitent."

Fitzhenry, as much affected as Agnes, faltered out, "Thou art restored to me,—and God knows how heartily I forgive thee!" Then raising her to his arms, Agnes, happy in the fullfilment of her utmost wishes, felt herself once more pressed to the bosom of the most affectionate of fathers.

"But surely you are not now come back?" asked Fitzhenry. "I have seen you before, and very lately?"—"Seen me! O yes!" replied Agnes with passionate rapidity;—"for these last five years I have seen you daily; and for the last two years you have lived with me, and I have worked to maintain you!"—"Indeed!" answered Fitzhenry:—"but how pale and thin you are! you have worked too much:—Had you no friends, my child?"

"O yes! and, guilty as I have been, they pity, nay, they respect me, and we may yet be happy! as Heaven restores you to my prayers!—True, I have suffered much; but this blessed moment repays me;—this is the only moment of true enjoyment which I have known since I left my home and you!"

Agnes was thus pouring out the hasty effusions of her joy, unconscious that Fitzhenry, overcome with affection, emotion, and, perhaps, sorrowful recollections, was struggling in vain for utterance;—at last,—"For so many years—and I knew you not!—worked for me;—attended me!——Bless, bless her, Heaven!" he faintly articulated; and worn out with illness, and choaked with contending emotions, he fell back on his pillow, and expired!

That blessing, the hope of obtaining which alone gave Agnes courage to endure contumely, poverty, fatigue, and sorrow, was for one moment her own, and then snatched from her for ever!—No wonder, then, that, when convinced her father was really dead, she fell into a state of stupefaction, from which she never recovered;—and, at the same time, were borne to the same grave, the Father and Daughter.

The day of their funeral was indeed a melancholy one:—They were attended to the grave by a numerous procession of respectable inhabitants of both sexes,—while the afflicted and lamenting poor followed mournfully at a distance. Even those who had distinguished themselves by their violence against Agnes at her return, dropped a tear as they saw her borne to her long home. Mrs. Macfiendy forgot her beauty and accomplishments in her misfortunes and early death; and the mother of the child who had fled from the touch of Agnes, felt sorry that she had ever called her the wickedest woman in the world.

But the most affecting part of the procession was little Edward as chief mourner, led by Fanny and her husband, in all the happy insensibility of childhood, unconscious that he was the pitiable hero of that show, which, by its novelty and parade, so much delighted him,—while his smiles, poor orphan! excited the tears of those around him.

Just before the procession began to move, a post-chariot and four, with white favours, drove into the yard of the largest inn in the town. It contained Lord and Lady Mountcarrol, who were married only the day before, and were then on their way to her ladyship's country seat.

His lordship, who seemed incapable of resting in one place for a minute together, did nothing but swear at the postillions for bringing them that road, and express an earnest desire to leave the town again as fast as possible.

While he was gone into the stable, for the third time, to see whether the horses were not sufficiently refreshed to go on, a waiter came in to ask Lady Mountcarrol's commands, and at that moment the funeral passed the window. The waiter (who was the very servant that at Mr. Seymour's had refused to shut the door against Agnes) instantly turned away his head, and burst into tears. This excited her ladyship's curiosity; and she drew from him a short but full account of Agnes and her father.

He had scarcely finished his story when Lord Mountcarrol came in, saying that the carriage was ready; and no sooner had his bride begun to relate to him the story which she had just heard, than he exclaimed in a voice of thunder, "It is as false as hell, madam! Miss Fitzhenry and her child both died years ago." Then rushing into the carriage, he left Lady Mountcarrol terrified and amazed at his manner. But when she was seating herself by his side, she could not help saying that it was impossible for a story to be false, which all the people in the inn averred to be true; and, as he did not offer to interrupt her, she went through the whole story of Agnes and her sufferings; but before she could proceed to comment on them, the procession, returning from church, crossed the road in which they were going, and obliged the postillions to stop.

Foremost came the little Edward, with all his mother's beauty in his face. "Poor little orphan!" said Lady Mountcarrol, giving a tear to the memory of Agnes: "See, my lord, what a lovely boy!" As she spoke, the extreme elegance of the carriage attracted Edward's attention: and springing from Fanny's hand, who in vain endeavoured to hold him back, he ran up to the door to examine the figures on the pannel. At that instant Lord Mountcarrol opened the door, lifted the child into the chaise, and, throwing his card of address to the astonished mourners, ordered the servants to drive on as fast as possible.