ance would have led her to reject this forbidden pleasure, before she had tasted of its poisonous sweets.-But I leave these reflections, and proceed to give an account of the entertainment at Dr. Holloway's.

When Mrs. Staunton and Louisa were ushered into the capacious drawing-room of the rectory, they found it filled with a large assembly of young and old persons, among whom however Louisa could see none but the same gentleman whose voice she had heard speaking in her praise under the arch-way. And she was not sorry, when led to a chair, to find herself seated close by this gentleman and his companion Captain Vivian, who soon found means to be introduced to her.

Louisa Harley had naturally much penetration into character; but this evening, being blinded by vanity, and agitated by other feelings, she did not distinguish the different manners of the two gentlemen, who kept by her side from her first entering the room; neither did she remark that Mr. Cecil Gray did not join in the common rattle with which Captain Vivian entertained her.

When tea was concluded, and the company began to move in order to dance, Louisa's heart began to beat. She had made a frequent and strong outcry against dancing in the presence of many then in the room: and yet she now very much wished to dance, and hoped that Mr. Gray would select her as a partner-but she was disappointed. Captain Vivian asked her, and, after a moment's hesitation, she rose up with him. And now, what with the exhilirating effect of the music, and the eagerness which many showed to obtain her hand, together with the compliments, direct and indirect, which she received from others, Louisa Harley was raised into exceedingly high spirits, especially as she hoped that Mr. Gray would seek to dance with her when she had performed her present engagement-but she was again mistaken. When the party, after two dances, sat down to rest, she looked round, and not seeing Mr. Gray in the room, she complained of heat, refused to dance any more, and stole into another room, where her aunt and certain other old ladies were set down to whist. Thither she was followed by Captain Vivian, and there, placing herself in a small settee near a bow window which opened into the garden, she remained listening

to the trifling discourse of that gentleman, till Mr. Cecil Gray, who had been walking in the garden, came up to the window, which he leaned upon as he stood on the outside, and addressing himself to Louisa, would have engaged her in conversation of a somewhat more rational kind than that with which his brother officer was amusing her, had not her own exuberance of spirits converted all be sail, if not into folly, into something very far from sense; vanity still blinding her to the real character and taste of the young man with whom she conversed.

It is the opinion of many, that the man who wears a sword must be a man of little depth; whereas the experience of those who ought to know, has lately proved that some of the excellent of the earth are now, as in old time, found among those who devote their lives to the service of their country; and perhaps there is no situation in which true piety appears with such lustre, as when it discovers itself amid all the unfavourable circumstances of a military life.

Had Louisa Harley known that such characters were sometimes found in the army, she might perhaps have been spared the mortification which she afterwards felt in recollecting the levity which she betrayed in the presence of Mr. Cecil Gray. But those who deviate from the way they approve, in order to secure some present gratification, must frequently run into mistakes which prevent the very end for which that deviation was made. Had Louisa firmly adhered to the simple course she had pursued for some months past, her chance of pleasing Cecil Gray would not have been utterly destroyed, as it was by the levity she displayed in his presence, when abandoning the conduct she thought right, in order to enjoy his society.

After the conversation at the window before mentioned, Louisa saw no more of Cecil Gray. He did not appear at the supper, from which she returned home fatigued and dissatisfied with herself.

The next day, Cecil Gray was asked by Captain Vivian, how he liked Miss Louisa Harley?

"She is a lovely young woman," replied the lieutenant. "This is a great deal for you to say, Cecil," remarked the other. 66 You have long been seeking a wife. Where can your choice rest better than in this place?" VOL. I.

E

"You mistake me," said Mr. Gray; "I have never had any thoughts of the kind."

"Are you then determined never to marry?"

"No," said Cecil Gray; "I have made no resolution of the kind. And, since you question me so closely, I will plainly tell you, that I wish to leave all concerns of this sort in the hand of Providence."

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Very good," said Captain Vivian; "but what do you expect Providence to do more for you, than to put a lovely young woman of good family in your way? And where will you see any thing superior to Louisa Harley?"

"In no place, perhaps," said Cecil Gray: and yet 1 should not dare to venture my happiness in her hands." "And why not?" returned Captain Vivian.

Cecil Gray smiled; but there was a sorrowful expres sion in the smile. He however remained silent, till Captain Vivian pressing him again, he replied, "To speak the truth I must have a serious wife, Vivian. I dare not trust myself with a woman who does not answer this description." "Serious!" repeated the other laughing, "what do you mean by serious? Do you mean religious? I have heard that Louisa Harley is the most religious young woman in the town."

"It may be so," said Cecil Gray; "but let us call another subject. Miss Harley has my respect and admiration; and perhaps it would be presumption to suppose that she would think of me were to offer myself." Thus the conversation ceased; and from that time Cecil Gray never mentioned Miss Harley in the presence of his brother-officers.

The detachment remained some months in D-, but Cecil Gray was not with them the whole time. It being reported that the corps would probably soon go abroad, he asked leave of absence, for the purpose of visiting his mother; after which he was ordered into the north, on the recruiting service, and did not rejoin his regiment while it remained in England, nor for some time afterward.

But to return to Louisa Harley. The day after the unfortunate assembly at Dr. Holloway's she was in company where the remarkably fine character of Cecil Gray was made the subject of discourse by a person who knew his mother, and had been acquainted with him from a child; and

then, and not till then, was Louisa made sensible of the folly and levity of her conduct on the preceding day. She then recollected his disinclination to join in the dance, and his repeated efforts to draw her into rational conversation. She remembered also, with an inconceivable degree of shame and vexation, the vanity and lightness of her own behaviour, together with her deviation from those rules of conduct which she had laid down for herself, and pursued for so many months with increasing comfort and advantage. And recalling to mind, anid these distressing recollections, the characters of Law's Miranda, Richardson's Clarissa, and other fabulous patterns of self-derived perfection, she could not forbear asking herself," Why can not I do as these did? what is it that causes me to fall thus grievously when tempted? or why can not I conduct myself as Mr. Gray does? Why can not I resist temptation as he does? What peculiar weakness is there in me, which causes me to make such grievous falls whenever I am placed in a state of trial? In this manner she often reasoned with herself, till she found that Cecil Gray had actually left the town; when she again renounced all society, formed new rules and regulations for her conduct, and inade new efforts to establish her own righteousness.

As long as this young lady's shame and depression of spirits continued, all seemed to go on well: but the spirits of youth are bouyant, and the sense of shame from natural causes soon passes away. In a few weeks after Cecil Gray's departure, Louisa Harley began to smile again; and as she no longer made the same efforts to conceal herself from society, as during her dejected state of mind, Captain Vivian found means not only to introduce himself to the aunt, but even to ingratiate himself so far with the niece, that she consented, after a due period of courtship, to become his wife; contrary to many resolutions which she had formed, of never marrying a man who was not decidedly religious.

But, as I have before said, Louisa Harley's religion was a religion of form; it had little to do with her heart. There was no divine strength imparted by it to the mind of its professor; and though it might have some little efficacy in influencing the conduct where the affections were not concerned, it was utterly powerless when engaged in a con

test with the passions, leaving the character entirely in its original state, the will unsubdued, the reason dark, and the imagination without control.

The first six weeks of Louisa's marriage were spent with her husband in her aunt's lodgings in the country, where the new married pair beguiled the time with rural walks, and other such pastimes. But at the end of this period the regiment was suddenly ordered to the coast previous to its embarkation for a foreign country, which proved to be the East Indies; in consequence of which Louisa was at once plunged into all the hurry and confusion of military life.

And now the character of this young lady was called to a new and severe test. There was little opportunity in a crowded and noisy lodging at Portsmouth, for the ob servance of any one of those forms of religion, to which she had hitherto attended with so much accuracy. There were indeed places of public worship in the town; but sometimes she had difficulty to learn the hours of divine service, and at other times, when she had found these out, and was just prepared to make her way through streets full of drunken sailors to a remote church, she was not unfrequently prevented by the coming in of her husband from the barracks with a party of his friends, calling in haste for a barrel of oysters or a mutton chap, and at the same time requiring his wife to sit down at the head of her table and assist in entertaining her guests.

Compared with this kind of life, even the cabin of an East Indiaman was comparatively peaceful; and Louisa was not sorry when she found herself settled in such a cabin as a crowded vessel would afford, in which all the convenient births had been engrossed by passengers, before the destination of the regiment was known.

During a five months' voyage from England to Bengal, Mr. and Mrs. Vivian had opportunity of seeing more of each other, than twenty years' residence in a quiet country town would have afforded them.

While under probation for the favour of Louisa, and while the first fervour of his affection lasted, amid the calm delights of their residence in the country, Captain Vivian very cheerfully acquiesced in all the religions forms which his wife thought it necessary to observe. But after their einbarkation on board the East Indiaman, he was never