having slept well, she arose with renovated spirits, and with a degree less of the feeling of being deserted, than she had had the day before.

It had been Mr. Willoughby's injunction that she should not travel more than fifty miles a day. This multiplied the days of travelling, and would have made the journey very tedious to any one less a novice than Isabella; but she observed the successive places and counties through which she passed with the curiosity and interest that she would have done had she been in a foreign country: and had she had the art of book-making, she might have furnished two elegantly-printed and hot-pressed volumes, with the views of the costumes and the wonders that she saw in her travels from London to Eagle's Crag. That which is performed daily, as a thing of the most common occurrence,

by persons of all descriptions, in mailcoaches and out, was a real epoch in the life of Isabella.

As she approached the loftier features of the Northern parts of the Island, her interest increased. Her eye dwelt with rapture on the grand inequality of form in all by which she was surrounded; and although she clasped her infant closer to her breast, as she beheld the tremendous risings and fallings over which she was about to pass, she felt for herself nothing but pleasure. In this pleasure she found no sympathy from her companions. Mrs. Adams declared, "It was monstrous shocking!" And the nurse was sure that "Master would be shook to death." But the tender nerves of the one still stood every succeeding horror, and the apprehensions of the other were not realized.

Isabella was now arrived at her last

sleeping place; when, as she alighted from her carriage, her eye fell on Sir Charles Seymour. With a delight little short of what might have been felt in the deserts of Arabia on recognising a countryman, she exclaimed, "Is it possible! Sir Charles Seymour! Oh, how glad I am to see you!"

Nor had she reason to doubt that she communicated less pleasure than she felt. Sir Charles, who had been drawn to the window by the rattling of her carriage wheels, had been as quick in acknowledging to whom it belonged, as Isabella had been in recognising her old acquaintance. Sir Charles was already at the door of the coach; already his hand was stretched out to assist her in stepping from it, and his arm ready to support her into the house.

But not even the tumult of this unexpected meeting could make Isabella

withdraw her attention from her boy for a single moment.

66

"No, no, Sir Charles," said she, you must not hurry me away so. Nurse, give me Godfrey. There take care-I will keep him quiet till everything is ready for him. And pray make haste; it is later than it should be, and the poor little fellow is tired."

way

So saying, she received the baby into her own arms; and having no hand for Sir Charles, and being deaf to his desire that he might "bear her lovely burthen for her," she made her into the room that was appointed for her, followed by Sir Charles, who, in the newly-awakened affections of a mother, saw another barrier raised between him and his presumptuous hopes. "But where is Willoughby ?" asked Sir Charles.

"Detained by business," replied

Isabella.

"Well, but he is intending to follow you; is he not ?"

"Undoubtedly-undoubtedly," replied Isabella, whose whole attention was given to her boy, who had now begun to cry. "You must excuse me, Sir Charles; I can think of nothing but Godfrey, till I have seen him fed and asleep." And the nurse appearing at the same moment at the door, "I come, I come," said she.

"But you mean to return, I hope," said Sir Charles. 66 May I not have the honour of drinking tea with you? It is rather too early an hour to think of supper."

"Is not that your carriage which is coming to the door now?" said Isabella.

"What a blunderer that fellow is," said Sir Charles: "I told him, as plain