Helena was excessively shocked.

"I wished, my dear," resumed her mother calmly, "I wished to have spared you the pain of knowing all this. I have given you but little pleasure in my life; it is unjust to give you so much pain. We shall go to Twickenham to-morrow, and I will leave you with your aunt Margaret, my dear, till all is over. If I die, Belinda will take you with her immediately to Oakly-park-you shall have as little sorrow as possible. If you had shown me less of your affectionate temper, you would have spared yourself the anguish that you now feel, and you would have spared me—”

66

'My dear, kind mother," interrupted Helena, throwing herself on her knees at her mother's feet, "do not send me away from you-I don't wish to go to my aunt Margaret-I don't wish to go to Oakly-park-I wish to stay with you. Do not send me away from you; for I shall suffer ten times more if I am not with you, though I know I can be of no use."

Overcome by her daughter's entreaties, Lady Delacour at last consented that she should remain with her, and that she should accompany her to Twickenham.

The remainder of this day was taken up in preparations for their departure. The stupid maid was immediately dismissed. No questions were asked, and no reasons for her dismissal assigned, except that Lady Delacour had no further occasion for her services, Marriott alone was to attend her lady to Twickenham. Lord Delacour, it was settled, should stay in town, lest the unusual circumstance of his attending his lady should excite public curiosity. His lordship, who was naturally a good-natured man, and who had been touched by the kindness his wife had lately shown him, was in extreme agitation during the whole of this day, which, he thought, might possibly be the last of her existence. She, on the contrary, was calm and collected: her courage seemed to rise with the necessity for its exertion.

In the morning, when the carriage came to the door, as she parted with Lord Delacour, she put into his hand a paper that contained some directions and requests, with which, she said, she hoped that he would comply, if they should prove to be her last. The paper contained only some legacies to her servants, a provision

for Marriott, and a bequest to her excellent and beloved friend Belinda Portman, of the cabinet in which she kept Clarence Hervey's letters.

Interlined in this place Lady Delacour had written these words: "My daughter is nobly provided for; and, lest any doubt or difficulty should arise from the omission, I think it necessary to mention that the said cabinet contains the valuable jewels left to me by my late uncle, and that it is my intention that the said jewels should be part of my bequest to the said Belinda Portman. If she marry a man of good fortune, she will wear them for my sake: if she do not marry an opulent husband, I hope she will sell the jewels without scruple, as they are intended for her convenience, and not as an ostentatious bequest. It is fit that she should be as independent in her circumstances as she is in her mind."

Lord Delacour, with much emotion, looked over this paper, and assured her ladyship that she should be obeyed, if— He could say no more.

“Farewell, then, my lord!" said she: "keep up your spirits; for I intend to live many years yet, to try them."

CHAPTER XXII.

A SPECTRE.

She

THE surgeon who was to attend Lady Delacour was prevented from going to her on the day appointed: he was one of the surgeons of the queen's household, and his attendance was required at the palace. This delay was extremely irksome to Lady Delacour, who had worked up her courage to the highest point, but who had not prepared herself to endure suspense. spent nearly a week at Twickenham in this anxious state, and Belinda observed that she every day became more and more thoughtful and reserved. She seemed as if she had some secret subject of meditation, from which she could not bear to be distracted. When Helena was present, she exerted herself to converse in her usual sprightly strain; but as soon as she could escape, as she thought, unobserved, she would shut her

self up in her own apartment, and remain there for hours.

"I wish to heaven, Miss Portman," said Marriott, coming one morning into her room with a portentous face "I wish to heaven, ma'am, that you could any way persuade my lady not to spend so many hours of the day and night as she does in reading those methodistical books that she keeps to herself! I'm sure that they do her no good, but a great deal of harm, especially now when her spirits should be kept up as much as possible. I am sensible, ma'am, that 'tis those books that have made my lady melancholy of a sudden. Ma'am, my lady has let drop very odd hints within these two or three days, and she speaks in a strange disconnected sort of style, and at times I do not think she is quite right in her head."

When Belinda questioned Marriott more particularly about the strange hints which her lady had let fall, she, with looks of embarrassment and horror, declined repeating the words that had been said to her; yet persisted in asserting that Lady Delacour had been very strange for these two or three days. "And I'm sure,

ma'am, you'd be shocked if you were to see my lady in a morning, when she wakens, or, rather, when I first go into her room-for, as to wakening, that's out of the question. I am certain she does not sleep during the whole night. You'll find, ma'am, it is as I tell you; those books will quite turn her poor head, and I wish they were burnt. I know the mischief that the same sort of things did to a poor cousin of my own, who was driven melancholy mad by a Methodist preacher, and came to an untimely end! O, ma'am! if you knew as much as I do, you'd be as much alarmed for my lady as I am."

It was impossible to prevail upon Marriott to explain herself more distinctly. The only circumstances that could be drawn from her seemed to Belinda so trifling as to be scarcely worth mentioning. For instance, that Lady Delacour, contrary to Marriott's advice, had insisted on sleeping in a bed-chamber upon the ground-floor, and had refused to let a curtain be put up before a glass door that was at the foot of her bed. "When I offered to put up the curtain, ma'am," said Marriott, "my lady said she liked the moonlight, and that she would not have it put up till the fine nights were over. Now,

Miss Portman, to hear my lady talk of the moon, and moonlights, and liking the moon, is rather extraordinary and unaccountable; for I never heard her say any thing of the sort in her life before; I question whether she ever knew there was a moon or not from one year's end to another. But they say the moon has a great deal to do with mad people; and, from my own experience, I'm perfectly sensible, ma'am, it had in my own cousin's case: for, before he came to the worst, he took a prodigious fancy to the moon, and was always for walking by moonlight, and talking to one of the beauty of the moon, and such melancholy nonsense, ma'am."

Belinda could not forbear smiling at this melancholy nonsense; though she was inclined to be of Marriott's opinion about the methodistical books, and she determined to talk to Lady Delacour on the subject. The moment that she made the attempt, her ladyship, commanding her countenance, with her usual ability, replied only by cautious, cold monosyllables, and changed the conversation as soon as she could.

At night, when they were retiring to rest, Marriott, as she lighted them to their rooms, observed that she was afraid her lady would suffer from sleeping in so cold a bed-chamber, and Belinda pressed her friend to change her apartment.

"No, my dear," replied Lady Delacour, calmly. "I have chosen this for my bed-chamber, because it is at a distance from the servants' rooms; and when the operation which I have to go through shall be performed, my cries, if I should utter any, will not be overheard. The surgeon will be here in a few days, and it is not worth while to make any change."

The next day, towards evening, the surgeon and Dr. X- arrived. Belinda's blood ran cold at the sight of them.

"Will you be so kind, Miss Portman," said Marriott, "as to let my lady know that they are come? for I am not well able to go, and you can speak more composed to her than I can.

Miss Portman went to Lady Delacour's bed-chamber. The door was bolted. As Lady Delacour opened it, she fixed her eyes upon Belinda, and said to her, with a mild voice, "You are come to tell me that the surgeon is arrived. I knew that by the manner in which you knocked at the door. I will see him this moment,"

continued she, in a firm tone; and she deliberately put a mark in the book which she had been reading, walked leisurely to the other end of the room, and locked it up in her bookcase. There was an air of determined dignity in all her motions. "Shall we go? I am ready," said she, holding out her hand to Belinda, who had sunk upon a chair.

"One would think that you were the person that was going to suffer. But drink this water, my dear, and do not tremble for me; you see that I do not tremble for myself. Listen to me, dearest Belinda! I owe it to your friendship not to torment you with unnecessary apprehensions. Your humanity shall be spared this dreadful scene."

66 No," ," said Belinda, "Marriott is incapable of attending you. I must-I will-I am ready now. Forgive me one moment's weakness. I admire, and will imitate, your courage. I will keep my promise."

"Your promise was to be with me in my dying moments, and to let me breathe my last in your arms." "I hope that I shall never be called upon to perform that promise."

Lady Delacour made no answer, but walked on before her with steady steps into the room where Dr. Xand the surgeon were waiting. Without adverting in the least to the object of their visit, she paid her compliments to them, as if they came on a visit of mere civility. Without seeming to notice the serious countenances of her companions, she talked of indifferent subjects with the most perfect ease, occupying herself all the time with cleaning a seal, which she unhooked from her watch-chain. "This seal," said she, turning to Dr. X-, " is a fine onyx-it is a head of Esculapius. I have a great value for it. It was given to me by your friend Clarence Hervey; and I have left it in my will, doctor," continued she, smiling, “to you, as no slight token of my regard. He is an excellent young man; and I request," said she, drawing Dr. X— to a window, and lowering her voice, "I request, when you see him again, and when I am out of the way, that you will tell him such were my sentiments to the hour of my death. Here is a letter which you will have the goodness to put into his hands, sealed with my favourite seal. You need have no scruple to take charge of it; it relates not to myself. It expresses only my opinion concerning a