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Isabella, blushing, and even trembling, with the varied emotion, of fear lest she was lowered in the opinion of the man whom she loved, and eagerness to vindicate herself. "I have no arcana. Mamma, indeed, wished that I should marry early; but I did not care about it, except to please her.”

"I am most happy," said Mr. Willoughby, caressing her, "that it pleased Mamma that you should marry me."

"Oh! but that pleased me too," said Isabella, timidly, and with her. eyes cast on the ground.

It would have been well for Mr. Willoughby if at this moment his vanity had stood his friend, and given the whole meaning of this compliment to his personal qualities; but he had known too many machinating mothers and obedient daughters, not to allow his "rent-roll," -" his princely mansion in the country," and his "ex

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cellent town-house," their full share in the pleasure so ingenuously expressed by Isabella. He knew that choice had had no part in her acceptance of his hand; and while he gave her credit for softness and truth, he regarded her as too much the creature of circumstances to feel his self-love much flattered by an attachment which he believed that she would have felt equally for any man who had been her husband. He emboldened not, therefore, this first indirect acknowledgment of love on the part of Isabella by any answering tenderness on his side, but pursuing his arrangement of the purposed party,

"I know," said he, "we may have Sir Charles Seymour. He promised to hold himself in readiness for the first summons I should give when his visit would not be an intrusion, and I suspect he may think it long of com

ing; and we will have your old playfellow Burghley; he is a good-natured spirited creature, and as full of tricks as a kitten; and with George Stanton, and one or two more, the house will be full. If Eagle's Crag were a little nearer we would adjourn thither, and enact such a Christmas as has not been seen since the days of good Queen Bess; but it would be a bad joke to travel into Westmoreland for the purpose, so we must do as well as we can in the more limited space of Beech Wood."

But

Isabella was acquiescent; the house was filled; and she felt more from deprivation than accession, that she was no longer its sole inhabitant. how could she wish it otherways when Mr. Willoughby had so many other claims upon his attention? Hers was not that sickly love which droops if it is not fed every hour in the day with sugar plums. She could indeed a

little wonder that he did not appear to regret the uninterrupted intercourse which he had once seemed to estimate so highly; that she heard no more of the exquisite bliss of being "all to each other;" the joy of being "he the relator, she sole auditress." She perceived that there were others to whom he could "relate," and by whose attention he seemed to think himself well repaid. She felt no such changes in herself; yet she was not the less obliged to attend more to others. And perhaps this was the case with Mr. Willoughby also; only he had more command over himself than she had; he could appear pleased with what, perhaps, after all, he only endured :-it was a debt due to society. She admired him the more for being thus able to discharge it; she tried to imitate him, looking for her indemnification when they should be once again alone.

CHAP. V.

"Let observation, with extensive view,
Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,
And watch the busy scenes of crowded life;
Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate,
O'erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate."
JOHNSON.

In the mean time the hours passed not unpleasantly;- the whole party seemed to be in good humour with themselves, and each other; Lady Jane was at the acme of delight. The splendour, the elegance, the festivity with which Isabella was surrounded, she regarded only as the fruits of her

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