*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49621 ***

                 THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER,

                    A Tale, in Prose.

                      By MRS. OPIE.


    Thy sweet reviving smiles might cheer despair,
    On the pale lips detain the parting breath,
    And bid hope blossom in the shades of death.

                                MRS. BARBAULD.


    _NINTH EDITION._

    LONDON:

    PRINTED FOR
    LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, BROWN, & GREEN,
    PATERNOSTER-ROW.

    1824.

    Printed by Richard Taylor,
    Shoe Lane, London.




[Illustration: ----"_she saw that he had drawn the shape of a coffin
and was then writing on the lid the name of Agnes._"----]




DEDICATION.


               TO

    DR. ALDERSON OF NORWICH.


DEAR SIR,

In dedicating this Publication to you, I follow in some measure the
example of those nations who devoted to their gods the first fruits of
the genial seasons which they derived from their bounty.

To you I owe whatever of cultivation my mind has received; and the first
fruits of that mind to you I dedicate.

Besides, having endeavoured in "THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER" to exhibit a
picture of the most perfect parental affection, to whom could I dedicate
it with so much propriety as to you, since, in describing a good father,
I had only to delineate my own?

Allow me to add, full of gratitude for years of tenderness and
indulgence on your part, but feebly repaid even by every possible
sentiment of filial regard on mine, that the satisfaction I shall
experience if my Publication be favourably received by the world, will
not proceed from the mere gratification of my self-love, but from the
conviction I shall feel that my success as an Author is productive of
pleasure to you.

                                                   AMELIA OPIE.

    _Berners Street_,
        1800.




THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

BY MRS. OPIE.




TO THE READER.


It is not without considerable apprehension that I offer myself as an
avowed Author at the bar of public opinion,--and that apprehension is
heightened by its being the general custom to give indiscriminately the
name of NOVEL to every thing in Prose that comes in the shape of a
Story, however simple it be in its construction, and humble in its
pretensions.

By this means, the following Publication is in danger of being tried by
a standard according to which it was never intended to be made, and to
be criticized for wanting those merits which it was never meant to
possess.

I therefore beg leave to say, in justice to myself, that I know "THE
FATHER AND DAUGHTER" is wholly devoid of those attempts at strong
character, comic situation, bustle, and variety of incident, which
constitute a NOVEL, and that its highest pretensions are, to be a
SIMPLE, MORAL TALE.




THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

A TALE.


The night was dark,--the wind blew keenly over the frozen and rugged
heath, when Agnes, pressing her moaning child to her bosom, was
travelling on foot to her father's habitation.

"Would to God I had never left it!" she exclaimed, as home and all its
enjoyments rose in fancy to her view:--and I think my readers will be
ready to join in the exclamation, when they hear the poor wanderer's
history.

Agnes Fitzhenry was the only child of a respectable merchant in a
country town, who, having lost his wife when his daughter was very
young, resolved for her sake to form no second connection. To the
steady, manly affection of a father, Fitzhenry joined the fond anxieties
and endearing attentions of a mother; and his parental care was amply
repaid by the love and amiable qualities of Agnes. He was not rich; yet
the profits of his trade were such as to enable him to bestow every
possible expense on his daughter's education, and to lay up a
considerable sum yearly for her future support: whatever else he could
spare from his own absolute wants, he expended in procuring comforts and
pleasures for her.--"What an excellent father that man is!" was the
frequent exclamation among his acquaintance--"And what an excellent
child he has! well may he be proud of her!" was as commonly the answer
to it.

Nor was this to be wondered at:--Agnes united to extreme beauty of face
and person every accomplishment that belongs to her own sex, and a great
degree of that strength of mind and capacity for acquiring knowledge
supposed to belong exclusively to the other.

For this combination of rare qualities Agnes was admired;--for
her sweetness of temper, her willingness to oblige, her seeming
unconsciousness of her own merits, and her readiness to commend the
merits of others,--for these still rarer qualities, Agnes was beloved:
and she seldom formed an acquaintance without at the same time securing
a friend.

Her father thought he loved her (and perhaps he was right) as never
father loved a child before; and Agnes thought she loved him as child
never before loved father.--"I will not marry, but live single for my
father's sake," she often said;--but she altered her determination when
her heart, hitherto unmoved by the addresses of the other sex, was
assailed by an officer in the guards who came to recruit in the town in
which she resided.

Clifford, as I shall call him, had not only a fine figure and graceful
address, but talents rare and various, and powers of conversation so
fascinating, that the woman he had betrayed forgot her wrongs in his
presence, and the creditor, who came to dun him for the payment of debts
already incurred, went away eager to oblige him by letting him incur
still more.

Fatal perversion of uncommon abilities! This man, who might have taught
a nation to look up to him as its best pride in prosperity and its best
hope in adversity, made no other use of his talents than to betray
the unwary of both sexes, the one to shame, the other to pecuniary
difficulties; and he whose mind was capacious enough to have imagined
schemes to aggrandize his native country, the slave of sordid
selfishness, never looked beyond his own temporary and petty benefit,
and sat down contented with the achievements of the day, if he had
overreached a credulous tradesman, or beguiled an unsuspecting woman.

But, to accomplish even these paltry triumphs, great knowledge of the
human heart was necessary,--a power of discovering the prevailing foible
in those on whom he had designs, and of converting their imagined
security into their real danger. He soon discovered that Agnes, who was
rather inclined to doubt her possessing in an uncommon degree the good
qualities which she really had, valued herself, with not unusual
blindness, on those which she had not. She thought herself endowed with
great power to read the characters of those with whom she associated,
when she had even not discrimination enough to understand her own: and,
while she imagined that it was not in the power of others to deceive
her, she was constantly in the habit of deceiving herself.

Clifford was not slow to avail himself of this weakness in his intended
victim; and, while he taught her to believe that none of his faults had
escaped her observation, with hers he had made himself thoroughly
acquainted.--But not content with making her faults subservient to his
views, he pressed her virtues also into his service; and her affection
for her father, that strong hold, secure in which Agnes would have
defied the most violent assaults of temptation, he contrived should be
the means of her defeat.

I have been thus minute in detailing the various and seducing powers
which Clifford possessed, not because he will be a principal figure in
my narrative,--for, on the contrary, the chief characters in it are the
Father and Daughter,--but in order to excuse as much as possible the
strong attachment which he excited in Agnes.

"Love," says Mrs. Inchbald, whose knowledge of human nature can be
equalled only by the humour with which she describes its follies, and
the unrivalled pathos with which she exhibits its distresses--"Love,
however rated by many as the chief passion of the heart, is but a poor
dependent, a retainer on the other passions--admiration, gratitude,
respect, esteem, pride in the object; divest the boasted sensation
of these, and it is no more than the impression of a twelvemonth,
by courtesy, or vulgar error, called love[1]."--And of all these
ingredients was the passion of Agnes composed. For the graceful person
and manner of Clifford she felt admiration; and her gratitude was
excited by her observing that, while he was an object of attention to
every one wherever he appeared, his attentions were exclusively directed
to herself; and that he who, from his rank and accomplishments, might
have laid claim to the hearts even of the brightest daughters of fashion
in the gayest scenes of the metropolis, seemed to have no higher
ambition than to appear amiable in the eyes of Agnes, the humble toast
of an obscure country town. While his superiority of understanding, and
brilliancy of talents, called forth her respect, and his apparent
virtues her esteem; and when to this high idea of the qualities of the
man was added a knowledge of his high birth and great expectations, it
is no wonder that she also felt the last-mentioned, and often perhaps
the greatest, excitement to love, "pride in the object."

[Footnote 1: Nature and Art, vol. i. p. 142.]

When Clifford began to pay those marked attentions to Agnes, which ought
always on due encouragement from the woman to whom they are addressed to
be followed by an offer of marriage, he contrived to make himself as
much disliked by the father as admired by the daughter: yet his
management was so artful, that Fitzhenry could not give a sufficient
reason for his dislike; he could only declare its existence; and for the
first time in her life Agnes learned to think her father unjust and
capricious.

Thus, while Clifford ensured an acceptance of his addresses from Agnes,
he at the same time secured a rejection of them from Fitzhenry; and this
was the object of his wishes, as he had a decided aversion to marriage,
and knew besides that marrying Agnes would disappoint all his ambitious
prospects in life, and bring on him the eternal displeasure of his
father.

At length, after playing for some time with her hopes and fears,
Clifford requested Fitzhenry to sanction with his approbation his
addresses to his daughter; and Fitzhenry, as he expected, coldly and
firmly declined the honour of his alliance. But when Clifford mentioned,
as if unguardedly, that he hoped to prevail on his father to approve the
marriage after it had taken place, if not before, Fitzhenry proudly told
him that he thought his daughter much too good to be smuggled into the
family of any one; while Clifford, piqued in his turn at the warmth of
Fitzhenry's expressions, and the dignity of his manner, left him,
exulting secretly in the consciousness that he had his revenge,--for he
knew that the heart of Agnes was irrecoverably his.

Agnes heard from her lover that his suit was rejected, with agonies as
violent as he appeared to feel.--"What!" exclaimed she, "can that
affectionate father, who has till now anticipated my wishes, disappoint
me in the wish nearest to my heart?" In the midst of her first agitation
her father entered the room, and, with "a countenance more in sorrow
than in anger" began to expostulate with her on the impropriety of the
connection which she was desirous of forming. He represented to her the
very slender income which Clifford possessed; the inconvenience to which
an officer's wife is exposed; and the little chance which there is for a
man's making a constant and domestic husband who has been brought up in
an idle profession, and accustomed to habits of intemperance, expense,
and irregularity:----

"But above all," said he, "how is it possible that you could ever
condescend to accept the addresses of a man whose father, he himself
owns, will never sanction them with his approbation?"

Alas! Agnes could plead no excuse but that she was in love, and she had
too much sense to urge such a plea to her father.

"Believe me," he continued, "I speak thus from the most disinterested
consideration of your interest; for, painful as the idea of parting with
you must be to me, I am certain I should not shrink from the bitter
trial, whenever my misery would be your happiness (Here his voice
faltered); but, in this case, I am certain that by refusing my consent
to your wishes I ensure your future comfort; and in a cooler moment you
will be of the same opinion."

Agnes shook her head, and turned away in tears.

"Nay, hear me, my child," resumed Fitzhenry, "you know that I am no
tyrant; and if, after time and absence have been tried in order to
conquer your unhappy passion, it remain unchanged, then, in defiance
of my judgement, I will consent to your marriage with Mr. Clifford,
provided his father consent likewise:--for, unless he do, I never
will:--and if you have not pride and resolution enough to be the
guardian of your own dignity, I must guard it for you; but I am sure
there will be no need of my interference: and Agnes Fitzhenry would
scorn to be clandestinely the wife of any man."

Agnes thought so too,--and Fitzhenry spoke this in so mild and
affectionate a manner, and in a tone so expressive of suppressed
wretchedness, which the bare idea of parting with her had occasioned
him, that, for the moment, she forgot every thing but her father, and
the vast debt of love and gratitude which she owed him; and throwing
herself into his arms she protested her entire, nay cheerful,
acquiescence in his determination.

"Promise me, then," replied Fitzhenry, "that you will never see Mr.
Clifford more, if you can avoid it: he has the tongue of Belial, and
if----"

Here Agnes indignantly interrupted him with reproaches for supposing her
so weak as to be in danger of being seduced into a violation of her
duty; and so strong were the terms in which she expressed herself, that
her father entreated her pardon for having thought such a promise
necessary.

The next day Clifford did not venture to call at the house, but he
watched the door till he saw Agnes come out alone. Having then joined
her, he obtained from her a full account of the conversation which she
had had with Fitzhenry; when, to her great surprise, he drew conclusions
from it which she had never imagined possible.

He saw, or pretended to see, in Fitzhenry's rejection of his offers, not
merely a dislike of her marrying him, but a design to prevent her
marrying at all; and as a design like this was selfish in the last
degree, and ought to be frustrated, he thought it would be kinder in her
to disobey her father then, and marry the man of her heart, than, by
indulging his unreasonable wishes on this subject once, to make him
expect that she would do so again, and continue to lead a single
life;--because, in that case, the day of her marrying, when it came at
last, would burst on him with tenfold horrors.

The result of this specious reasoning, enforced by tears, caresses and
protestations, was, that she had better go off to Scotland immediately
with him, and trust to time, necessity, and their parents' affection, to
secure their forgiveness.

Agnes the first time heard these arguments, and this proposal, with the
disdain which they merited; but, alas! she did not resolve to avoid all
opportunity of hearing them a second time: but, vain of the resolution
she had shown on this first trial, she was not averse to stand another,
delighted to find that she had not overrated her strength, when she
reproached Fitzhenry for his want of confidence in it.

The consequence is obvious:--again and again she heard Clifford argue
in favour of an elopement; and, though she still retained virtue
sufficient to withhold her consent, she every day saw fresh reason to
believe he argued on good grounds, and to think that that parent whose
whole study, till now, had been her gratification, was, in this instance
at least, the slave of unwarrantable selfishness.----

At last, finding that neither time, reflection, nor even a temporary
absence, had the slightest effect on her attachment, but that it gained
new force every day, she owned that nothing but the dread of making
her father unhappy withheld her from listening to Clifford's
proposal:--'Twas true, she said, pride forbade it; but the woman who
could listen to the dictates of pride, knew nothing of love but the
name.

This was the moment for Clifford to urge more strongly than ever that
the elopement was the most effectual means of securing her father's
happiness, as well as her own; till at last her judgement became the
dupe of her wishes; and, fancying that she was following the dictates
of filial affection, when she was in reality the helpless victim of
passion, she yielded to the persuasions of a villain; and set off with
him for Scotland.

When Fitzhenry first heard of her flight, he sat for hours absorbed in a
sort of dumb anguish, far more eloquent than words. At length he burst
into exclamations against her ingratitude for all the love and care that
he had bestowed on her; and the next moment he exclaimed with tears of
tenderness, "Poor girl! she is not used to commit faults; how miserable
she will be when she comes to reflect! and how she will long for my
forgiveness! and, O yes! I am sure I shall long as ardently to forgive
her!"--Then his arms were folded in fancy round his child, whom he
pictured to himself confessing her marriage to him, and upon her knees
imploring his pardon.

But day after day came, and no letter from the fugitives, acknowledging
their error, and begging his blessing on their union,--for no union had
taken place.

When Clifford and Agnes had been conveyed as fast as four horses could
carry them one hundred miles towards Gretna-green, and had ordered fresh
horses, Clifford started as he looked at his pocket-book, and, with
well-dissembled consternation, exclaimed, "What can we do? I have
brought the wrong pocket-book, and have not money enough to carry us
above a hundred and odd miles further on the North road!"--Agnes was
overwhelmed with grief and apprehension at this information, but did not
for an instant suspect that the fact was otherwise than as Clifford
stated it to be.

As I before observed, Agnes piqued herself on her knowledge of
characters, and she judged of them frequently by the rules of
physiognomy; she had studied voices too, as well as countenances:--was
it possible, then, that Agnes, who had from Clifford's voice and
countenance pronounced him all that was ingenuous, honourable, and
manly, could suspect him capable of artifice? could she, retracting her
pretensions to penetration, believe she had put herself in the power of
a designing libertine? No;--vanity and self-love forbade this salutary
suspicion to enter her imagination; and, without one scruple, or one
reproach, she acceded to the plan which Clifford proposed, as the only
one likely to obviate their difficulties, and procure them most speedily
an opportunity of solemnizing their marriage.

Deluded Agnes! You might have known that the honourable lover is as
fearful to commit the honour of his mistress, even in appearance, as she
herself can be; that his care and anxiety to screen her even from the
breath of suspicion are ever on the watch; and that therefore, had
Clifford's designs been such as virtue would approve, he would have put
it out of the power of accident to prevent your immediate marriage, and
expose your fair fame to the whisper of calumny.

To London they set forward, and were driven to an hotel in the Adelphi,
whence Clifford went out in search of lodgings; and, having met with
convenient apartments at the west end of the town, he conducted to them
the pensive and already repentant Agnes.--"Under what name and title,"
said Agnes, "am I to be introduced to the woman of the house?"--"As my
intended wife," cried her lover, pressing her to his bosom;--"and in a
few days,--though to me they will appear ages,--you will give me a right
to call you by that tender name."--"In a few days!" exclaimed Agnes,
withdrawing from his embrace; "cannot the marriage take place
to-morrow?" "Impossible!" replied Clifford; "you are not of age,--I
can't procure a license;--but I have taken these lodgings for a
month,--we will have the banns published, and be married at the
parish-church."

To this arrangement, against which her delicacy and every feeling
revolted, Agnes would fain have objected in the strongest manner: but,
unable to urge any reasons for her objection, except such as seemed to
imply distrust of her own virtue, she submitted, in mournful silence, to
the plan: with a heart then for the first time tortured with a sense
of degradation, she took possession of her apartment; and Clifford
returned to his hotel, meditating with savage delight on the success of
his plans, and on the triumph which, he fancied, awaited him.

Agnes passed the night in sleepless agitation, now forming and now
rejecting schemes to obviate the danger which must accrue to her
character, if not to her honour, by remaining for a whole month exposed
to the seductions of a man whom she had but too fatally convinced of his
power over her heart; and the result of her reflections was, that she
should insist on his leaving town, and not returning till he came to
lead her to the altar. Happy would it have been for Agnes, had she
adhered to this resolution; but vanity and self-confidence again
interfered:--"What have I to fear?" said Agnes to herself;--"am I so
fallen in my own esteem that I dare not expose myself even to a shadow
of temptation?--No;--I will not think so meanly of my virtue:--the
woman that is afraid of being dishonoured is half overcome already; and
I will meet with boldness the trials which I cannot avoid."

O Vanity! thou hast much to answer for!--I am convinced that, were we to
trace up to their source all the most painful and degrading events of
our lives, we should find most of them to have their origin in the
gratified suggestions of vanity.

It is not my intention to follow Agnes through the succession of
mortifications, embarrassments, and contending feelings, which preceded
her undoing (for, secure as she thought herself in her own strength, and
the honour of her lover, she became at last a prey to her seducer); it
is sufficient that I explain the circumstances which led to her being in
a cold winter's night, houseless and unprotected, a melancholy wanderer
towards the house of her father.

Before the expiration of the month, Clifford had triumphed over the
virtue of Agnes; and soon after he received orders to join his regiment,
as it was going to be sent on immediate service.--"But you will return
to me before you embark, in order to make me your wife?" said the
half-distracted Agnes; "you will not leave me to shame as well as
misery?" Clifford promised every thing she wished; and Agnes tried to
lose the pangs of parting, in anticipation of the joy of his return. But
on the very day when she expected him, she received a letter from him,
saying that he was under sailing orders, and to see her again before the
embarkation was impossible.

To do Clifford justice, he in this instance told truth; and, as he
really loved Agnes as well as a libertine can love, he felt the
agitation and distress which his letter expressed; though, had he
returned to her, he had an excuse ready prepared for delaying the
marriage.

Words can but ill describe the situation of Agnes on the receipt of this
letter.--The return of Clifford was not to be expected for months at
least; and perhaps he might never return!--The thought of his danger was
madness:--but, when she reflected that she should in all probability be
a mother before she became a wife, in a transport of frantic anguish she
implored heaven in mercy to put an end to her existence.--"O my dear,
injured father!" she exclaimed, "I, who was once your pride, am now your
disgrace!--and that child whose first delight it was to look up in your
face, and see your eyes beaming with fondness on her, can now never dare
to meet their glance again."

But, though Agnes dared not presume to write to her father till she
could sign herself the wife of Clifford, she could not exist without
making some secret inquiries concerning his health and spirits; and,
before he left her, Clifford recommended a trusty messenger to her for
the purpose.--The first account which she received was, that Fitzhenry
was well; the next, that he was dejected; the three following, that his
spirits were growing better,--and the last account was, that he was
married.----

"Married!" cried Agnes rushing into her chamber, and shutting the door
after her, in a manner sufficiently indicative to the messenger of
the anguish she hastened from him to conceal;--"Married!--Clifford
abroad,--perhaps at this moment a corpse,--and my father married!--What,
then, am I? A wretch forlorn! an outcast from society!--no one to love,
no one to protect and cherish me! Great God! wilt thou not pardon me if
I seek a refuge from my suffering in the grave?"

Here nature suddenly and powerfully impressed on her recollection that
she was about to become a parent; and, falling on her knees, she sobbed
out, "What am I, did I ask?--I am a mother, and earth still holds me by
a tie too sacred to be broken!"

Then by degrees she became calmer, and rejoiced, fervently rejoiced, in
her father's second marriage, though she felt it as too convincing a
proof how completely he had thrown her from his affections. She knew
that the fear of a second family's diminishing the strong affection
which he bore to her was his reason for not marrying again, and now it
was plain that he married in hopes of losing his affection for her.
Still this information removed a load from her mind, by showing her that
Fitzhenry felt himself capable of receiving happiness from other hands
than hers; and she resolved, if she heard that he was happy in his
change of situation, never to recall to his memory the daughter whom it
was so much his interest to forget.

The time of Agnes's confinement now drew near,--a time which fills with
apprehension even the wife, who is soothed and supported by the tender
attentions of an anxious husband, and the assiduities of affectionate
relations and friends, and who knows that the child with which she is
about to present them will at once gratify their affections and their
pride. What then must have been the sensations of Agnes at a moment so
awful and dangerous as this!--Agnes, who had no husband to soothe her by
his anxious inquiries, no relations or friends to cheer her drooping
soul by the expressions of sympathy, and whose child, instead of being
welcomed by an exulting family, must be, perhaps, a stranger even to its
nearest relations!

But in proportion to her trials seemed to be Agnes's power of rising
superior to them; and, after enduring her sufferings with a degree of
fortitude and calmness that astonished the mistress of the house, whom
compassion had induced to attend on her, she gave birth to a lovely
boy.--From that moment, though she rarely smiled, and never saw any one
but her kind landlady, her mind was no longer oppressed by the deep
gloom under which she had before laboured; and when she had heard from
Clifford, or of her father's being happy, and clasped her babe to her
bosom, Agnes might almost be pronounced cheerful.

After she had been six months a mother, Clifford returned; and, in the
transport of seeing him safe, Agnes forgot for a moment that she had
been anxious and unhappy. Now again was the subject of the marriage
resumed; but just as the wedding day was fixed, Clifford was summoned
away to attend his expiring father, and Agnes was once more doomed to
the tortures of suspense.

After a month's absence Clifford came back, but appeared to labour under
a dejection of spirits which he seemed studious to conceal from her.
Alarmed and terrified at an appearance so unusual, she demanded an
explanation, which the consummate deceiver gave at length, after many
entreaties on her part, and feigned reluctance on his. He told her that
his father's illness was occasioned by his having been informed that he
was privately married to her; that he had sent for him to inquire into
the truth of the report; and, being convinced by his solemn assurance
that no marriage had taken place, he had commanded him, unless he
wished to kill him, to take a solemn oath never to marry Agnes Fitzhenry
without his consent.

"And did you take the oath?" cried Agnes, her whole frame trembling with
agitation.--"What could I do?" replied he; "my father's life in evident
danger if I refused; besides the dreadful certainty that he would put
his threats in execution of cursing me with his dying breath;--and,
cruel as he is, Agnes, I could not help feeling that he was my
father."----"Barbarian!" exclaimed she, "I sacrificed my father to
you!--An oath! O God! have you then taken an oath never to be mine?"
and, saying this, she fell into a long and deep swoon.

When she recovered, but before she was able to speak, she found Clifford
kneeling by her; and, while she was too weak to interrupt him, he
convinced her that he did not at all despair of his father's consent to
his making her his wife, else, he should have been less willing to give
so ready a consent to take the oath imposed on him, even although his
father's life depended on it. "Oh! no," replied Agnes, with a bitter
smile; "you wrong yourself; you are too good a son to have been capable
of hesitating a moment;--there are few children so bad, so very bad as I
am!"--and, bursting into an agony of grief, it was long before the
affectionate language and tender caresses of Clifford could restore her
to tranquillity.

Another six months elapsed, during which time Clifford kept her hopes
alive, by telling her that he every day saw fresh signs of his father's
relenting in her favour.--At these times she would say, "Lead me to him;
let him hear the tale of my wretchedness; let me say to him, For your
son's sake I have left the best of fathers, the happiest of homes, and
have become an outcast from society!--then would I bid him look at
this pale cheek, this emaciated form, proofs of the anguish that is
undermining my constitution; and tell him to beware how, by forcing you
to withhold from me my right, he made you guilty of murdering the poor
deluded wretch, who, till she knew you, never lay down without a
father's blessing, nor rose but to be welcomed by his smile!"

Clifford had feeling, but it was of that transient sort which never
outlived the disappearance of the object that occasioned it. To these
pathetic entreaties he always returned affectionate answers, and was
often forced to leave the room in order to avoid being too much softened
by them; but, by the time he had reached the end of the street, always
alive to the impressions of the present moment, the sight of some new
beauty, or some old companion, dried up the starting tear, and restored
to him the power of coolly considering how he should continue to deceive
his miserable victim.

But the time at length arrived when the mask that hid his villany from
her eyes fell off, never to be replaced. As Agnes fully expected to be
the wife of Clifford, she was particularly careful to lead a retired
life, and not to seem unmindful of her shame by exhibiting herself at
places of public amusement. In vain did Clifford paint the charms of the
Play, the Opera, and other places of fashionable resort. "Retirement,
with books, music, work, and your society," she used to reply, "are
better suited to my taste and situation; and never, but as your wife,
will I presume to meet the public eye."

Clifford, though he wished to exhibit his lovely conquest to the world,
was obliged to submit to her will in this instance. Sometimes, indeed,
Agnes was prevailed on to admit to her table those young men of
Clifford's acquaintance who were the most distinguished for their
talents and decorum of manners; but this was the only departure that he
had ever yet prevailed on her to make, from the plan of retirement which
she had adopted.

One evening, however, Clifford was so unusually urgent with her to
accompany him to Drury-lane to see a favourite tragedy, (alleging, as an
additional motive for her obliging him, that he was going to leave her
on the following Monday, in order to attend his father into the country,
where he should be forced to remain some time,) that Agnes, unwilling to
refuse what he called his parting request, at length complied; Clifford
having prevailed on Mrs. Askew, her kind landlady, to accompany them,
and having assured Agnes, that, as they should sit in the upper boxes,
she might, if she chose it, wear her veil down.--Agnes, in spite of
herself, was delighted with the representation,--but, as

    "--hearts refin'd the sadden'd tint retain,
    The sigh is pleasure, and the jest is pain,"

she was desirous of leaving the house before the farce began; yet, as
Clifford saw a gentleman in the lower boxes with whom he had business,
she consented to stay till he had spoken to him. Soon after she saw
Clifford enter the lower box opposite to her; and those who know what it
is to love, will not be surprised to hear that Agnes had more pleasure
in looking at her lover, and drawing favourable comparisons between him
and the gentlemen who surrounded him, than in attending to the farce.

She had been some moments absorbed in this pleasing employment, when
two gentlemen entered the box where she was, and seated themselves
behind her.

"Who is that elegant, fashionable-looking man, my lord, in the lower box
just opposite to us?" said one of the gentlemen to the other.--"I mean,
he who is speaking to captain Mowbray."--"It is George Clifford, of the
guards," replied his lordship, "and one of the cleverest fellows in
England, colonel."

Agnes, who had not missed one word of this conversation, now became
still more attentive.

"Oh! I have heard a great deal of him," returned the colonel, "and as
much against him as for him."--"Most likely," said his lordship; "I dare
say that fellow has ruined more young men, and seduced more young women,
than any man of his age (which is only four-and-thirty) in the
kingdom."

Agnes sighed deeply, and felt herself attacked by a sort of faint
sickness.

"But it is to be hoped that he will reform now," observed the colonel:
"I hear he is going to be married to miss Sandford, the great city
heiress."--"So he is,--and Monday is the day fixed for the wedding."

Agnes started:--Clifford himself had told her he must leave her on
Monday for some weeks;--and in breathless expectation she listened to
what followed.

--"But what then?" continued his lordship: "He marries for money merely.
The truth is, his father is lately come to a long disputed barony, and
with scarcely an acre of land to support the dignity of it: so his son
has consented to marry an heiress, in order to make the family rich,
as well as noble. You must know, I have my information from the
fountain-head;--Clifford's mother is my relation, and the good woman
thought proper to acquaint me in form with the _advantageous_ alliance
which her hopeful son was about to make."

This _confirmation_ of the truth of a story, which she till now hoped
might be mere report, was more than Agnes could well bear; but, made
courageous by desperation, she resolved to listen while they continued
to talk on this subject. Mrs. Askew, in the mean while, was leaning over
the box, too much engrossed by the farce to attend to what was passing
behind her. Just as his lordship concluded the last sentence, Agnes saw
Clifford go out with his friend; and she who had but the minute before
gazed on him with looks of admiring fondness, now wished, in the
bitterness of her soul, that she might never behold him again!

"I never wish," said the colonel, "a match of interest to be a happy
one."--"Nor will this be so, depend on it," answered his lordship;
"for, besides that miss Sandford is ugly and disagreeable, she has a
formidable rival."--"Indeed!" cried the other;--"a favourite mistress, I
suppose?"

Here the breath of Agnes grew shorter and shorter; she suspected that
they were going to talk of her; and, under other circumstances, her nice
sense of honour would have prevented her attending to a conversation
which she was certain was not meant for her ear: but so great was the
importance of the present discourse to her future peace and well-being,
that it annihilated all sense of impropriety in listening to it.

"Yes, he has a favourite mistress," answered his lordship,--"a girl
who was worthy of a better fate."--"You know her then?" asked the
colonel.--"No," replied he,--"by name only; but when I was in the
neighbourhood of the town where she lived, I heard continually of her
beauty and accomplishments: her name is Agnes Fitz--Fitz--"--"Fitzhenry,
I suppose," said the other.--"Yes, that is the name," said his lordship:
"How came you to guess it?"--"Because Agnes Fitzhenry is a name which I
have often heard toasted: she sings well, does she not?"--"She does
every thing well," rejoined the other; "and was once the pride of her
father, and of the town in which she lived."

Agnes could scarcely forbear groaning aloud at this faithful picture of
what she once was.

"Poor thing!" resumed his lordship;--"that ever she should be the victim
of a villain! It seems he seduced her from her father's house, under
pretence of carrying her to Gretna-green; but, on some infernal plea or
other, he took her to London."

Here the agitation of Agnes became so visible as to attract Mrs. Askew's
notice; but as she assured her that she should be well presently, Mrs.
Askew again gave herself up to the illusion of the scene. Little did his
lordship think how severely he was wounding the peace of one for whom he
felt such compassion.

"You seem much interested about this unhappy girl," said the
colonel.--"I am so," replied the other, "and full of the subject too;
for Clifford's factotum, Wilson, has been with me this morning, and I
learned from him some of his master's tricks, which made me still more
anxious about his victim.--It seems she is very fond of her father,
though she was prevailed on to desert him, and has never known a happy
moment since her elopement; nor could she be easy without making
frequent but secret inquiries concerning his health."--"Strange
inconsistency!" muttered the colonel.--"This anxiety gave Clifford room
to fear that she might at some future moment, if discontented with him,
return to her afflicted parent before he was tired of her:--so what do
you think he did?"

At this moment Agnes, far more eager to hear what followed than the
colonel, turned round, and, fixing her eyes on her unknown friend with
wild anxiety, could scarcely help saying, What did Clifford do, my lord?

--"He got his factotum, the man I mentioned, to personate a messenger,
and to pretend that he had been to her native town, and then he gave her
such accounts as were best calculated to calm her anxiety: but the
master-stroke which secured her remaining with him was, his telling
the pretended messenger to inform her that her father was _married
again_,--though it is more likely, poor unhappy man, that he is dead,
than that he is married."

At the mention of this horrible probability, Agnes lost all
self-command, and, screaming aloud, fell back on the knees of the
astonished narrator, reiterating her cries with all the alarming
helplessness of phrensy.

"Turn her out! turn her out!" echoed through the theatre,--for the
audience supposed that the noise proceeded from some intoxicated and
abandoned woman; and a man in the next box struck Agnes a blow on the
shoulder, and, calling her by a name too gross to repeat, desired her to
leave the house, and act her drunken freaks elsewhere.

Agnes, whom the gentlemen behind were supporting with great kindness
and compassion, heard nothing of this speech save the injurious epithet
applied to herself; and alive only to what she thought the justice of
it, "Did you hear that?" she exclaimed, starting up with the look and
tone of phrensy--"Did you hear that?--O God! my brain is on
fire!"--Then, springing over the seat, she rushed out of the box,
followed by the trembling and astonished Mrs. Askew, who in vain tried
to keep pace with the desperate speed of Agnes.

Before Agnes, with all her haste, could reach the bottom of the stairs,
the farce ended and the lobbies began to fill. Agnes pressed forward,
when amongst the crowd she saw a tradesman who lived near her father's
house.--No longer sensible of shame, for anguish had annihilated it, she
rushed towards him, and, seizing his arm, exclaimed, "For the love of
God, tell me how my father is!" The tradesman, terrified and astonished
at the pallid wildness of her look, so unlike the countenance of
successful and contented vice that he would have expected to see her
wear, replied--"He is well, poor soul! but----"--"But unhappy, I
suppose?" interrupted Agnes:--"Thank God he is well:--but is he
married?"--"Married! dear me, no! he is--"--"Do you think he would
forgive me?" eagerly rejoined Agnes.--"Forgive you!" answered
the man--"How you talk! Belike he might forgive you, if--"--"I
know what you would say," interrupted Agnes again, "if I would
return--Enough,--enough:--God bless you! you have saved me from
distraction."

So saying, she ran out of the house; Mrs. Askew having overtaken her,
followed by the nobleman and the colonel, who with the greatest
consternation had found, from an exclamation of Mrs. Askew's, that the
object of their compassion was miss Fitzhenry herself.

But before Agnes had proceeded many steps down the street Clifford met
her, on his return from a neighbouring coffee-house with his companion;
and, spite of her struggles and reproaches, which astonished and alarmed
him, he, with Mrs. Askew's assistance, forced her into a hackney-coach,
and ordered the man to drive home.--No explanation took place during the
ride. To all the caresses and questions of Clifford she returned nothing
but passionate exclamations against his perfidy and cruelty. Mrs. Askew
thought her insane; Clifford wished to think her so; but his conscience
told him that, if by accident his conduct had been discovered to her,
there was reason enough for the frantic sorrow which he witnessed.

At length they reached their lodgings, which were in Suffolk-street,
Charing-cross; and Agnes, having at length obtained some composure,
in as few words as possible related the conversation which she had
overheard. Clifford, as might be expected, denied the truth of what his
lordship had advanced; but it was no longer in his power to deceive the
awakened penetration of Agnes.--Under his assumed unconcern, she clearly
saw the confusion of detected guilt: and giving utterance in very strong
language to the contempt and indignation which she felt, while
contemplating such complete depravity, she provoked Clifford, who was
more than half intoxicated, boldly to avow what he was at first eager to
deny; and Agnes, who before shuddered at his hypocrisy, was now shocked
at his unprincipled daring.

"But what right have you to complain?" added he: "the cheat that I put
upon you relative to your father was certainly meant in kindness; and
though miss Sandford will have my hand, you alone will ever possess my
heart; therefore it was my design to keep you in ignorance of my
marriage, and retain you as the greatest of all my worldly
treasures.--Plague on this prating lord! he has destroyed the prettiest
arrangement ever made. However, I hope we shall part good friends."

"Great God!" cried Agnes, raising her tearless eyes to heaven,--"and
have I then forsaken the best of parents for a wretch like this!--But
think not, sir," she added, turning with a commanding air towards
Clifford, whose temper, naturally warm, the term 'wretch' had not
soothed, "think not, fallen as I am, that I will ever condescend to
receive protection and support, either for myself or child, from a man
whom I know to be a consummate villain. You have made me criminal, but
you have not obliterated my horror for crime and my veneration for
virtue,--and, in the fulness of my contempt, I inform you, sir, that we
shall meet no more."

"Not till to-morrow," said Clifford:--"this is our first quarrel, Agnes;
and the quarrels of lovers are only the renewal of love, you know:
therefore leaving the 'bitter, piercing air' to guard my treasure for me
till to-morrow, I take my leave, and hope in the morning to find you in
a better humour."

So saying he departed, secure, from the inclemency of the weather and
darkness of the night, that Agnes would not venture to go away before
the morning, and resolved to return very early in order to prevent her
departure, if her threatened resolution were any thing more than the
frantic expressions of a disappointed woman. Besides, he knew that at
that time she was scantily supplied with money, and that Mrs. Askew
dared not furnish her with any for the purpose of leaving him.

But he left not Agnes, as he supposed, to vent her sense of injury in
idle grief and inactive lamentation; but to think, to decide, and to
act.--What was the rigour of the night to a woman whose heart was torn
by all the pangs which convictions, such as those which she had lately
received, could give? She hastily therefore wrapped up her sleeping boy
in a pélisse, of which in a calmer moment she would have felt the want
herself, and took him in her arms: then, throwing a shawl over her
shoulders, she softly unbarred the hall door, and before the noise could
have summoned any of the family she was already out of sight.

So severe was the weather, that even those accustomed to brave in ragged
garments the pelting of the pitiless storm shuddered, as the freezing
wind whistled around them, and crept with trembling knees to the
wretched hovel that awaited them. But the winter's wind blew unfelt by
Agnes: she was alive to nothing but the joy of having escaped from a
villain, and the faint hope that she was hastening to obtain, perhaps, a
father's forgiveness.

"Thank Heaven!" she exclaimed, as she found herself at the rails along
the Green Park,--"the air which I breathe here is uncontaminated by his
breath!" when, as the watchman called half-past eleven o'clock, the
recollection that she had no place of shelter for the night occurred to
her, and at the same instant she remembered that a coach set off at
twelve from Piccadilly, which went within twelve miles of her native
place. She therefore immediately resolved to hasten thither, and, either
in the inside or on the outside, to proceed on her journey as far as her
finances would admit of, intending to walk the rest of the way. She
arrived at the inn just as the coach was setting off, and found, to her
great satisfaction, one inside place vacant.

Nothing worth mentioning occurred on the journey. Agnes, with her veil
drawn over her face, and holding her slumbering boy in her arms, while
the incessant shaking of her knee and the piteous manner in which she
sighed gave evident marks of the agitation of her mind, might excite in
some degree the curiosity of her fellow-travellers, but gave no promise
of that curiosity being satisfied, and she was suffered to remain
unquestioned and undisturbed.

At noon the next day the coach stopped, for the travellers to dine, and
stay a few hours to recruit themselves after their labours past, and to
fortify themselves against those yet to come. Here Agnes, who as she
approached nearer home became afraid of meeting some acquaintance,
resolved to change her dress, and to equip herself in such a manner as
should, while it screened her from the inclemency of the weather, at the
same time prevent her being recognised by any one. Accordingly she
exchanged her pélisse, shawl, and a few other things, for a man's great
coat, a red cloth cloak with a hood to it, a pair of thick shoes, and
some yards of flannel in which she wrapped up her little Edward; and,
having tied her straw bonnet under her chin with her veil, she would
have looked like a country-woman drest for market, could she have
divested herself of a certain delicacy of appearance and gracefulness
of manner, the yet uninjured beauties of former days.

When they set off again she became an outside passenger, as she could
not afford to continue an inside one; and covering her child up in the
red cloak which she wore over her coat, she took her station on the top
of the coach with seeming firmness, but a breaking heart.

Agnes expected to arrive within twelve miles of her native place long
before it was dark, and reach the place of her destination before
bed-time, unknown and unseen: but she was mistaken in her expectations:
for the roads had been rendered so rugged by the frost, that it was late
in the evening when the coach reached the spot whence she was to
commence her walk; and by the time she had eaten her slight repast, and
furnished herself with some necessaries to enable her to resist the
severity of the weather, she found that it was impossible for her to
reach her long-forsaken home before day-break.

Still she was resolved to go on:--to pass another day in suspense
concerning her father, and her future hopes of his pardon, was more
formidable to her than the terrors of undertaking a lonely and painful
walk. Perhaps too, Agnes was not sorry to have a tale of hardship to
narrate on her arrival at the house of her nurse, whom she meant to
employ as mediator between her and her offended parent.

His child, his penitent child, whom he had brought up with the utmost
tenderness, and screened with unremitting care from the ills of
life, returning, to implore his pity and forgiveness, on foot, and
unprotected, through all the dangers of lonely paths, and through the
horrors of a winter's night, must, she flattered herself, be a picture
too affecting for Fitzhenry to think upon without some commiseration;
and she hoped he would in time bestow on her his _forgiveness_;--to be
admitted to his presence, was a favour which she dared not presume
either to ask or expect.

But, in spite of the soothing expectation which she tried to encourage,
a dread of she knew not what took possession of her mind.--Every moment
she looked fearfully around her, and, as she beheld the wintry waste
spreading on every side, she felt awe-struck at the desolateness of her
situation. The sound of a human voice would, she thought, have been
rapture to her ear; but the next minute she believed that it would
have made her sink in terror to the ground.--"Alas!" she mournfully
exclaimed, "I was not always timid and irritable as I now feel;--but
then I was not always guilty:--O my child! would I were once more
innocent like thee!" So saying, in a paroxysm of grief she bounded
forward on her way, as if hoping to escape by speed from the misery of
recollection.

Agnes was now arrived at the beginning of a forest, about two miles in
length, and within three of her native place. Even in her happiest days
she never entered its solemn shade without feeling a sensation of
fearful awe; but now that she entered it, leafless as it was, a
wandering wretched outcast, a mother without the sacred name of wife,
and bearing in her arms the pledge of her infamy, her knees smote each
other, and, shuddering as if danger were before her, she audibly
implored the protection of Heaven.

At this instant she heard a noise, and, casting a startled glance into
the obscurity before her, she thought she saw something like a human
form running across the road. For a few moments she was motionless
with terror; but, judging from the swiftness with which the object
disappeared that she had inspired as much terror as she felt, she
ventured to pursue her course. She had not gone far when she again
beheld the cause of her fear; but hearing, as it moved, a noise like the
clanking of a chain, she concluded that it was some poor animal which
had been turned out to graze.

Still, as she gained on the object before her, she was convinced it was
a man that she beheld; and, as she heard the noise no longer, she
concluded that it had been the result of fancy only: but that, with
every other idea, was wholly absorbed in terror when she saw the figure
standing still, as if waiting for her approach.--"Yet why should I
fear?" she inwardly observed: "it may be a poor wanderer like myself,
who is desirous of a companion;--if so, I shall rejoice in such a
rencontre."

As this reflection passed her mind, she hastened towards the stranger,
when she saw him look hastily around him, start, as if he beheld at a
distance some object that alarmed him, and then, without taking any
notice of her, run on as fast as before. But what can express the horror
of Agnes when she again heard the clanking of a chain, and discovered
that it hung to the ankle of the stranger!--"Surely he must be a
felon," murmured Agnes:--"O my poor boy! perhaps we shall both be
murdered!--This suspense is not to be borne: I will follow him, and meet
my fate at once."--Then, summoning all her remaining strength, she
followed the alarming fugitive.

After she had walked nearly a mile further, and, as she did not
overtake him, had flattered herself that he had gone in a contrary
direction, she saw him seated on the ground, and, as before, turning his
head back with a sort of convulsive quickness; but as it was turned from
her, she was convinced that she was not the object which he was seeking.
Of her he took no notice; and her resolution of accosting him failing
when she approached, she walked hastily past, in hopes that she might
escape him entirely.

As she passed, she heard him talking and laughing to himself, and
thence concluded that he was not a felon, but a _lunatic_ escaped from
confinement. Horrible as this idea was, her fear was so far overcome
by pity, that she had a wish to return, and offer him some of the
refreshment which she had procured for herself and child, when she heard
him following her very fast, and was convinced by the sound, the
dreadful sound of his chain, that he was coming up to her.

The clanking of a fetter, when one knows that it is fastened round
the limbs of a fellow-creature, always calls forth in the soul, of
sensibility a sensation of horror: what then, at this moment, must have
been its effect on Agnes, who was trembling for her life, for that of
her child, and looking in vain for a protector around the still, solemn
waste! Breathless with apprehension, she stopped as the maniac gained
upon her, and, motionless and speechless, awaited the consequence of his
approach.

"Woman!" said he in a hoarse, hollow tone,--"Woman! do you see them? Do
you see them?"--"Sir! pray what did you say, sir?" cried Agnes in a tone
of respect, and curtsying as she spoke,--for what is so respectful as
fear?--"I can't see them," resumed he, not attending to her, "I have
escaped them! Rascals! cowards! I have escaped them!" and then he jumped
and clapped his hands for joy.

Agnes, relieved in some measure from her fears, and eager to gain the
poor wretch's favour, told him that she rejoiced at his escape from the
rascals, and hoped that they would not overtake him: but while she spoke
he seemed wholly inattentive, and, jumping as he walked, made his fetter
clank in horrid exultation.

The noise at length awoke the child, who, seeing a strange and
indistinct object before him, and hearing a sound so unusual, screamed
violently, and hid his face in his mother's bosom.

"Take it away! take it away!" exclaimed the maniac,--"I do not like
children."--Agnes, terrified at the thought of what might happen, tried
to sooth the trembling boy to rest, but in vain; the child still
screamed, and the angry agitation of the maniac increased.--"Strangle
it! strangle it!" he cried--"do it this moment, or----"

Agnes, almost frantic with terror, conjured the unconscious boy, if he
valued his life, to cease his cries; and then the next moment she
conjured the wretched man to spare her child: but, alas! she spoke to
those incapable of understanding her,--a child and a madman!--The
terrified boy still shrieked, the lunatic still threatened; and,
clenching his fist, seized the left arm of Agnes, who with the other
attempted to defend her infant from his fury; when, at the very moment
that his fate seemed inevitable, a sudden gale of wind shook the
leafless branches of the surrounding trees; and the madman, fancying
that the noise proceeded from his pursuers, ran off with his former
rapidity.

Immediately the child, relieved from the sight and the sound which
alarmed it, and exhausted by the violence of its cries, sunk into a
sound sleep on the throbbing bosom of its mother. But, alas! Agnes knew
that this was but a temporary escape:--the maniac might return, and
again the child might wake in terrors:--and scarcely had the thought
passed her mind when she saw him coming back; but, as he walked slowly,
the noise was not so great as before.

"I hate to hear children cry," said he as he approached.--"Mine is quiet
now," replied Agnes: then, recollecting that she had some food in her
pocket, she offered some to the stranger, in order to divert his
attention from the child. He snatched it from her hand instantly, and
devoured it with terrible voraciousness; but again he exclaimed, "I do
not like children;--if you trust them they will betray you:" and Agnes
offered him food again, as if to bribe him to spare her helpless
boy.--"I had a child once,--but she is dead, poor soul!" continued he,
taking Agnes by the arm, and leading her gently forward.--"And you loved
her very tenderly, I suppose?" said Agnes, thinking that the loss of his
child had occasioned his malady; but, instead of answering her, he went
on:--"They said that she ran away from me with a lover,--but I knew they
lied; she was good, and would not have deserted the father who doted on
her.--Besides, I saw her funeral myself.--Liars, rascals, as they
are!--Do not tell any one: I got away from them last night, and am now
going to visit her grave."

A death-like sickness, an apprehension so horrible as to deprive her
almost of sense, took possession of the soul of Agnes. She eagerly tried
to obtain a sight of the stranger's face, the features of which the
darkness had hitherto prevented her from distinguishing: she however
tried in vain, as his hat was pulled over his forehead, and his chin
rested on his bosom. But they had now nearly gained the end of the
forest, and day was just breaking; and Agnes, as soon as they entered
the open plain, seized the arm of the madman to force him to look
towards her,--for speak to him she could not. He felt, and perhaps
resented the importunate pressure of her hand--for he turned hastily
round--when, dreadful confirmation of her fears, Agnes beheld her
father!!!

It was indeed Fitzhenry, driven to madness by his daughter's desertion
and disgrace!!

After the elopement of Agnes, Fitzhenry entirely neglected his business,
and thought and talked of nothing but the misery which he experienced.
In vain did his friends represent to him the necessity of his making
amends, by increased diligence, for some alarming losses in trade which
he had lately sustained. She, for whom alone he toiled, had deserted
him--and ruin had no terrors for him.--"I was too proud of her," he used
mournfully to repeat,--"and Heaven has humbled me even in her by whom I
offended."

Month after month elapsed, and no intelligence of Agnes.--Fitzhenry's
dejection increased, and his affairs became more and more involved: at
length, absolute and irretrievable bankruptcy was become his portion,
when he learned, from authority not to be doubted, that Agnes was living
with Clifford as his acknowledged mistress.--This was the death-stroke
to his reason: and the only way in which his friends (relations he had
none, or only distant ones) could be of any further service to him was,
by procuring him admission into a private madhouse in the neighbourhood.

Of his recovery little hope was entertained.--The constant theme of his
ravings was his daughter;--sometimes he bewailed her as dead; at other
times he complained of her as ungrateful:--but so complete was the
overthrow which his reason had received, that he knew no one, and took
no notice of those whom friendship or curiosity led to his cell: yet he
was always meditating his escape; and, though ironed in consequence of
it, the night he met Agnes, he had, after incredible difficulty and
danger, effected his purpose.

But to return to Agnes, who, when she beheld in her insane companion her
injured father, the victim probably of her guilt, let fall her sleeping
child, and, sinking on the ground, extended her arms towards Fitzhenry,
articulating in a faint voice, "O God! My father!" then prostrating
herself at his feet, she clasped his knees in an agony too great for
utterance.

At the name of 'father,' the poor maniac started, and gazed on her
earnestly, with savage wildness, while his whole frame became convulsed;
then, rudely disengaging himself from her embrace, he ran from her a few
paces, and dashed himself on the ground in all the violence of phrensy.
He raved; he tore his hair; he screamed, and uttered the most dreadful
execrations; and, with his teeth shut and his hands clenched, he
repeated the word 'father,' and said the name was mockery to him.

Agnes, in mute and tearless despair, beheld the dreadful scene: in vain
did her affrighted child cling to her gown, and in its half-formed
accents entreat to be taken to her arms again: she saw, she heeded
nothing but her father; she was alive to nothing but her own guilt and
its consequences; and she awaited with horrid composure the cessation of
Fitzhenry's phrensy, or the direction of its fury towards her child.

At last, she saw him fall down exhausted and motionless, and tried to
hasten to him; but she was unable to move, and reason and life seemed at
once forsaking her, when Fitzhenry suddenly started up, and approached
her.--Uncertain as to his purpose, Agnes caught her child to her bosom,
and, falling again on her knees, turned on him her almost closing eyes;
but his countenance was mild,--and gently patting her forehead, on which
hung the damps of approaching insensibility, "Poor thing!" he cried, in
a tone of the utmost tenderness and compassion, "Poor thing!" and then
gazed on her with such inquiring and mournful looks, that tears once
more found their way and relieved her bursting brain, while seizing her
father's hand she pressed it with frantic emotion to her lips.

Fitzhenry looked at her with great kindness, and suffered her to hold
his hand;--then exclaimed, "Poor thing!--don't cry,--don't cry;--I can't
cry,--I have not cried for many years,--not since my child died.--For
she is dead, is she not?" looking earnestly at Agnes, who could only
answer by her tears.--"Come," said he, "come," taking hold of her arm,
then laughing wildly, "Poor thing! you will not leave me, will
you?"--"Leave you!" she replied: "Never:--I will live with you--die with
you."--"True, true," cried he, "she is dead, and we will go visit her
grave."--So saying, he dragged Agnes forward with great velocity; but
as it was along the path leading to the town, she made no resistance.

Indeed it was such a pleasure to her to see that though he knew her not,
the sight of her was welcome to her unhappy parent, that she sought to
avoid thinking of the future, and to be alive only to the present: she
tried also to forget that it was to his not knowing her that she owed
the looks of tenderness and pity which he bestowed on her, and that the
hand which now kindly held hers, would, if recollection returned, throw
her from him with just indignation.

But she was soon awakened to redoubled anguish, by hearing Fitzhenry, as
he looked behind him, exclaim, "They are coming! they are coming!" and
as he said this, he ran with frantic haste across the common. Agnes,
immediately looking behind her, saw three men pursuing her father at
full speed, and concluded that they were the keepers of the bedlam
whence he had escaped. Soon after, she saw the poor lunatic coming
towards her, and had scarcely time to lay her child gently on the
ground, before Fitzhenry threw himself in her arms, and implored her to
save him from his pursuers.

In an agony that mocks description, Agnes clasped him to her heart, and
awaited in trembling agitation the approach of the keepers.--"Hear me!
hear me!" she cried; "I conjure you to leave him to my care: He is my
father, and you may safely trust him with me."--"Your father!" replied
one of the men; "and what then, child? You could do nothing for him, and
you should be thankful to us, young woman, for taking him off your
hands.--So come along, master, come along," he continued, seizing
Fitzhenry, who could with difficulty be separated from Agnes,--while
another of the keepers, laughing as he beheld her wild anguish, said,
"We shall have the daughter as well as the father soon, I see, for I do
not believe there is a pin to choose between them."

But severe as the sufferings of Agnes were already, a still greater pang
awaited her. The keepers finding it a very difficult task to confine
Fitzhenry, threw him down, and tried by blows to terrify him into
acquiescence. At this outrage Agnes became frantic indeed, and followed
them with shrieks, entreaties, and reproaches; while the struggling
victim called on her to protect him, as they bore him by violence along,
till, exhausted with anguish and fatigue, she fell insensible on the
ground, and lost in a deep swoon the consciousness of her misery.

When she recovered her senses all was still around her, and she missed
her child. Then hastily rising, and looking round with renewed phrensy,
she saw it lying at some distance from her, and on taking it up she
found that it was in a deep sleep. The horrid apprehension immediately
rushed on her mind, that such a sleep in the midst of cold so severe was
the sure forerunner of death.

"Monster!" she exclaimed, "destroyer of thy child, as well as
father!--But perhaps it is not yet too late, and my curse is not
completed."--So saying, she ran, or rather flew, along the road; and
seeing a house at a distance she made towards it, and, bursting open the
door, beheld a cottager and his family at breakfast:--then, sinking on
her knees, and holding out to the woman of the house her sleeping boy,
"For the love of God," she cried, "look here! look here! Save him! O
save him!"

A mother appealing to the heart of a mother is rarely unsuccessful in
her appeal.--The cottager's wife was as eager to begin the recovery of
the child of Agnes as Agnes herself, and in a moment the whole family
was employed in its service; nor was it long before they were rewarded
for their humanity by its complete restoration.

The joy of Agnes was frantic as her grief had been.--She embraced them
all by turns, in a loud voice invoked blessings on their heads, and
promised, if she was ever rich, to make their fortune:--lastly, she
caught the still languid boy to her heart, and almost drowned it in her
tears.

In the cottager and his family a scene like this excited wonder as well
as emotion. He and his wife were good parents; they loved their
children,--would have been anxious during their illness, and would have
sorrowed for their loss: but to these violent expressions and actions,
the result of cultivated sensibility, they were wholly unaccustomed, and
could scarcely help imputing them to insanity,--an idea which the pale
cheek and wild look of Agnes strongly confirmed; nor did it lose
strength when Agnes, who in terror at her child's danger and joy for his
safety had forgotten even her father and his situation, suddenly
recollecting herself, exclaimed, "Have I dared to rejoice?--Wretch that
I am! Oh! no;--there is no joy for me!" The cottager and his wife, on
hearing these words, looked significantly at each other.

Agnes soon after started up, and, clasping her hands, cried out, "O my
father! my dear, dear father! thou art past cure; and despair must be my
portion."

"Oh! you are unhappy because your father is ill," observed the
cottager's wife; "but do not be so sorrowful on that account, he may
get better perhaps."

"Never, never," replied Agnes;--"yet who knows?"

"Aye; who knows indeed?" resumed the good woman. "But if not, you nurse
him yourself, I suppose; and it will be a comfort to you to know he has
every thing done for him that can be done."

Agnes sighed deeply.

"I lost my own father," continued she, "last winter, and a hard trial it
was, to be sure; but then it consoled me to think I made his end
comfortable. Besides, my conscience told me that, except here and there,
I had always done my duty by him, to the best of my knowledge."

Agnes started from her seat, and walked rapidly round the room.

"He smiled on me," resumed her kind hostess, wiping her eyes, "to the
last moment; and just before the breath left him, he said, 'Good child!
good child!' O! it must be a terrible thing to lose one's parents when
one has not done one's duty to them!"

At these words Agnes, contrasting her conduct and feelings with those of
this artless and innocent woman, was overcome with despair, and seizing
a knife that lay by her endeavoured to put an end to her existence; but
the cottager caught her hand in time to prevent the blow, and his wife
easily disarmed her, as her violence instantly changed into a sort of
stupor: then throwing herself back on the bed on which she was sitting,
she lay with her eyes fixt, and incapable of moving.

The cottager and his wife now broke forth into expressions of wonder and
horror at the crime which she was going to commit, and the latter taking
little Edward from the lap of her daughter, held it towards
Agnes:--"See," cried she, as the child stretched forth its little arms
to embrace her,--"unnatural mother! would you forsake your child?"

These words, assisted by the caresses of the child himself, roused Agnes
from her stupor.--"Forsake him! Never, never!" she faltered out: then,
snatching him to her bosom, she threw herself back on a pillow which the
good woman had placed under her head; and soon, to the great joy of the
compassionate family, both mother and child fell into a sound sleep. The
cottager then repaired to his daily labour, and his wife and children
began their household tasks; but ever and anon they cast a watchful
glance on their unhappy guest, dreading lest she should make a second
attempt on her life.

The sleep of both Agnes and her child was so long and heavy, that night
was closing in when the little boy awoke, and by his cries for food
broke the rest of his unhappy mother.

But consciousness returned not with returning sense;--Agnes looked
around her, astonished at her situation. At length, by slow degrees, the
dreadful scenes of the preceding night and her own rash attempt burst on
her recollection; she shuddered at the retrospect, and, clasping her
hands, together, remained for some moments in speechless prayer:--then
she arose; and, smiling mournfully at sight of her little Edward eating
voraciously the milk and bread that was set before him, she seated
herself at the table, and tried to partake of the coarse but wholesome
food provided for her. As she approached, she saw the cottager's wife
remove the knives. This circumstance forcibly recalled her rash action,
and drove away her returning appetite.--"You may trust me now," she
said; "I shrink with horror from my wicked attempt on my life, and
swear, in the face of Heaven, never to repeat it: no,--my only wish now
is, to live and to suffer."

Soon after, the cottager's wife made an excuse for bringing back a knife
to the table, to prove to Agnes her confidence in her word; but this
well-meant attention was lost on her,--she sat leaning on her elbow, and
wholly absorbed in her own meditations.

When it was completely night, Agnes arose to depart.--"My kind friends,"
said she, "who have so hospitably received and entertained a wretched
wanderer, believe me I shall never forget the obligations which I owe
you, though I can never hope to repay them; but accept this (taking her
last half-guinea from her pocket) as a pledge of my inclination to
reward your kindness. If I am ever rich you shall--" Here her voice
failed her, and she burst into tears.

This hesitation gave the virtuous people whom she addressed an
opportunity of rejecting her offers.--"What we did, we did because we
could not help it," said the cottager.--"You would not have had me see a
fellow-creature going to kill soul and body too, and not prevent it,
would you?"--"And as to saving the child," cried the wife, "am I not a
mother myself, and can I help feeling for a mother? Poor little thing!
it looked so piteous too, and felt so cold!"

Agnes could not speak; but still, by signs she tendered the money to
their acceptance.--"No, no," resumed the cottager, "keep it for those
who may not be willing to do you a service for nothing:"--and Agnes
reluctantly replaced the half-guinea. But then a fresh source of
altercation began; the cottager insisted on seeing Agnes to the town,
and she insisted on going by herself: at last she agreed that he should
go with her as far as the street where her friends lived, wait for her
at the end of it, and if they were not living, or were removed, she was
to return, and sleep at the cottage.

Then, with a beating heart and dejected countenance, Agnes took her
child in her arms, and, leaning on her companion, with slow and unsteady
steps she began to walk to her native place, once the scene of her
happiness and her glory, but now about to be the witness of her misery
and her shame.

As they drew near the town, Agnes saw on one side of the road a new
building, and instantly hurried from it as fast as her trembling limbs
could carry her.--"Did you hear them?" asked the cottager.--"Hear whom?"
said Agnes.--"The poor creatures," returned her companion, "who are
confined there. That is the new bedlam, and--Hark! what a loud scream
that was!"

Agnes, unable to support herself, staggered to a bench that projected
from the court surrounding the building, while the cottager, unconscious
why she stopped, observed it was strange that she should like to stay
and hear the poor creatures--For his part, he thought it shocking to
hear them shriek, and still more so to hear them laugh--"for it is so
piteous," said he, "to hear those laugh who have so much reason to cry."

Agnes had not power to interrupt him, and he went on:--"This house was
built by subscription; and it was begun by a kind gentleman of the name
of Fitzhenry, who afterwards, poor soul, being made low in the world by
losses in trade, and by having his brain turned by a good-for-nothing
daughter, was one of the first patients in it himself."--Here Agnes, to
whom this recollection had but too forcibly occurred already, groaned
aloud. "What, tired so soon?" said her companion: "I doubt you have not
been used to stir about--you have been too tenderly brought up. Ah!
tender parents often spoil children, and they never thank them for it
when they grow up neither, and often come to no good besides."

Agnes was going to make some observations wrung from her by the
poignancy of self-upbraiding, when she heard a loud cry as of one in
agony: fancying it her father's voice, she started up, and stopping her
ears, ran towards the town so fast that it was with difficulty that the
cottager could overtake her. When he did so, he was surprised at the
agitation of her manner.--"What, I suppose you thought they were coming
after you?" said he. "But there was no danger--I dare say it was only
an unruly one whom they were beating."--Agnes, on hearing this,
absolutely screamed with agony: and seizing the cottager's arm, "Let us
hasten to the town," said she in a hollow and broken voice, "while I
have strength enough left to carry me thither." At length they entered
its walls, and the cottager said, "Here we are at last.--A welcome home
to you, young woman."--"Welcome! and home to me!" cried Agnes wildly--"I
have no home now--I can expect no welcome! Once indeed----" Here,
overcome with recollections almost too painful to be endured, she turned
from him and sobbed aloud, while the kind-hearted man could scarcely
forbear shedding tears at sight of such mysterious, yet evidently real,
distress.

In happier days, when Agnes used to leave home on visits to her distant
friends, anticipation of the welcome she should receive on her return
was, perhaps, the greatest pleasure that she enjoyed during her absence.
As the adventurer to India, while toiling for wealth, never loses sight
of the hope that he shall spend his fortune in his native land,--so
Agnes, whatever company she saw, whatever amusements she partook of,
looked eagerly forward to the hour when she should give her expecting
father and her affectionate companions a recital of all that she had
heard and seen. For, though she had been absent a few weeks only, "her
presence made a little holiday," and she was received by Fitzhenry with
delight too deep to be expressed; while, even earlier than decorum
warranted, her friends were thronging to her door to welcome home the
heightener of their pleasures, and the gentle soother of their sorrows;
(for Agnes "loved and felt for all:" she had a smile ready to greet the
child of prosperity, and a tear for the child of adversity)--As she was
thus honoured, thus beloved, no wonder the thoughts of home, and of
returning home, were wont to suffuse the eyes of Agnes with tears of
exquisite pleasure; and that, when her native town appeared in view, a
group of expecting and joyful faces used to swim before her sight,
while, hastening forward to have the first glance of her, fancy used to
picture her father!----Now, dread reverse! after a _long_ absence, an
absence of years, she was returning to the same place, inhabited by the
same friends: but the voices that used to be loud in pronouncing her
welcome, would now be loud in proclaiming indignation at her sight; the
eyes that used to beam with gladness at her presence, would now be
turned from her with disgust; and the fond father, who used to be
counting the moments till she arrived, was now----I shall not go
on----suffice, that Agnes felt, to "her heart's core," all the
bitterness of the contrast.

When they arrived near the place of her destination, Agnes stopped, and
told the cottager that they must part.--"So much the worse," said the
good man: "I do now know how it is, but you are so sorrowful, yet so
kind and gentle, somehow, that both my wife and I have taken a liking to
you:--you must not be angry, but we cannot help thinking you are not one
of us, but a lady, though you are so disguised and so humble;--but
misfortune spares no one, you know."

Agnes, affected and gratified by these artless expressions of good will,
replied, "I have, indeed, known better days...."--"And will again, I
hope with all my heart and soul," interrupted the cottager with great
warmth.--"I fear, not," replied Agnes, "my dear worthy friend."--"Nay,
young lady," rejoined he, "my wife and I are proper to be your servants,
not friends."--"You are my friends, perhaps my only friends," returned
Agnes mournfully: "perhaps there is not, at this moment, another hand in
the universe that would not reject mine, or another tongue that would
not upbraid me."--"They must be hard-hearted wretches, indeed, who could
upbraid a poor woman for her misfortunes," cried the cottager: "however,
you shall never want a friend while I live. You know I saved your life;
and somehow, I feel therefore as if you belonged to me. I once saved one
of my pigeons from a hawk, and I believe, were I starving, I could not
now bear to kill the little creature; it would seem like eating my own
flesh and blood--so I am sure I could never desert you."--"You have not
yet heard my story," replied Agnes: "but you shall know who I am soon;
and then, if you still feel disposed to offer me your friendship, I
shall be proud to accept it."

The house to which Agnes was hastening was that of her nurse, from whom
she had always experienced the affection of a mother, and hoped now to
receive a temporary asylum; but she might not be living--and, with a
beating heart, Agnes knocked at the door. It was opened by Fanny, her
nurse's daughter, the play-fellow of Agnes's childhood.--"Thank Heaven!"
said Agnes, as she hastened back to the cottager, "I hope I have, at
least, one friend left;" and telling him he might go home again, as she
was almost certain of shelter for the night, the poor man shook her
heartily by the hand, prayed God to bless her, and departed.

Agnes then returned to Fanny, who was still standing by the door,
wondering who had knocked at so late an hour, and displeased at
being kept so long in the cold.--"Will you admit me, Fanny, and
give me shelter for the night?" said Agnes in a faint and broken
voice.--"Gracious Heaven! who are you?" cried Fanny, starting back. "Do
you not know me?" she replied, looking earnestly in her face.--Fanny
again started; then, bursting into tears, as she drew Agnes forward, and
closed the door--"O God! it is my dear young lady!"--"And are you sorry
to see me?" replied Agnes.--"Sorry!" answered the other--"Oh, no! but to
see you thus!--O! my dear lady, what you must have suffered! Thank
Heaven my poor mother is not alive to see this day!"

"And is she dead?" cried Agnes, turning very faint, and catching hold of
a chair to keep her from falling. "Then is the measure of my affliction
full: I have lost my oldest and best friend!"--"I am not dead," said
Fanny respectfully.--"Excellent, kind creature!" continued Agnes, "I
hoped so much alleviation of my misery from her affection."--"Do you
hope none from mine?" rejoined Fanny in a tone of reproach:--"Indeed, my
dear young lady, I love you as well as my mother did, and will do as
much for you as she would have done. Do I not owe all I have to you? and
now that you are in trouble, perhaps in want too--But no, that cannot
and shall not be," wringing her hands and pacing the room with frantic
violence: "I can't bear to think of such a thing. That ever I should
live to see my dear young lady in want of the help which she was always
so ready to give!"

Agnes tried to comfort her: but the sight of her distress
notwithstanding was soothing to her, as it convinced her that she was
still dear to one pure and affectionate heart.

During this time little Edward remained covered up so closely that Fanny
did not know what the bundle was that Agnes held in her lap: but when
she lifted up the cloak that concealed him, Fanny was in an instant
kneeling by his side, and gazing on him with admiration. "Is it--is
it--" said Fanny with hesitation--"It is my child," replied Agnes,
sighing; and Fanny lavished on the unconscious boy the caresses which
respect forbade her to bestow on the mother.

"Fanny," said Agnes, "you say nothing of your husband?"--"He is dead,"
replied Fanny with emotion.--"Have you any children?"--"None."--"Then
will you promise me, if I die, to be a mother to this child?"--Fanny
seized her hand, and, in a voice half choked by sobs, said, "I promise
you."--"Enough," cried Agnes; then holding out her arms to her humble
friend, Fanny's respect yielded to affection, and, falling on Agnes's
neck, she sobbed aloud.

"My dear Fanny," said Agnes, "I have a question to ask, and I charge you
to answer it truly."--"Do not ask me, do not ask me, for indeed I dare
not answer you," replied Fanny in great agitation. Agnes guessed the
cause, and hastened to tell her that the question was not concerning her
father, as she was acquainted with his situation already, and proceeded
to ask whether her elopement and ill conduct had at all hastened the
death of her nurse, who was in ill health when she went away.--"Oh no,"
replied Fanny; "she never believed that you could be gone off willingly,
but was sure you was spirited away; and she died expecting that you
would some day return, and take the law of the villain: and no doubt
she was right, (though nobody thinks so now but me,) for you were always
too good to do wrong."

Agnes was too honourable to take to herself the merit which she did not
deserve: she therefore owned that she was indeed guilty; "nor should I,"
she added, "have dared to intrude myself on you, or solicit you to let
me remain under your roof, were I not severely punished for my crime,
and resolved to pass the rest of my days in solitude and labour."--"You
should not presume to intrude yourself on me!" replied Fanny--"Do not
talk thus, if you do not mean to break my heart."--"Nay, Fanny,"
answered Agnes, "it would be presumption in any woman who has quitted
the path of virtue to intrude herself, however high her rank might be,
on the meanest of her acquaintance whose honour is spotless. Nor would
I thus throw myself on your generosity were I not afraid that, if I were
to be unsoothed by the presence of a sympathizing friend, I should sink
beneath my sorrows, and want resolution to fulfill the hard task which
my duty enjoins me."

I shall not attempt to describe the anguish of Fanny when she thought of
her young lady, the pride of her heart, as she used to call her, being
reduced so low in the world, nor the sudden bursts of joy to which she
gave way the next moment when she reflected that Agnes was returned,
never perhaps to leave her again.

Agnes wore away great part of the night in telling Fanny her mournful
tale, and in hearing from her a full account of her father's sufferings,
bankruptcy, and consequent madness. At day-break she retired to
bed,--not to sleep, but to ruminate on the romantic yet in her eyes
feasible plan which she had formed for the future;--while Fanny, wearied
out by the violent emotions which she had undergone, sobbed herself to
sleep by her side.

The next morning Agnes did not rise till Fanny had been up some time;
and when she seated herself at the breakfast-table, she was surprised to
see it spread in a manner which ill accorded with her or Fanny's
situation. On asking the reason, Fanny owned she could not bear that her
dear young lady should fare as she did only, and had therefore provided
a suitable breakfast for her.--"But you forget," said Agnes, "that if I
remain with you, neither you nor I can afford such breakfasts as
these."--"True," replied Fanny mournfully; "then you must consider this
as only a welcome, madam."--"Aye," replied Agnes, "the prodigal is
returned, and you have killed the fatted calf." Fanny burst into tears;
while Agnes, shocked at having excited them by the turn which she
unguardedly gave to her poor friend's attention, tried to sooth her into
composure, and affected a gaiety which she was far from feeling.

"Now then to my first task," said Agnes, rising as soon as she had
finished her breakfast: "I am going to call on Mr. Seymour; you say he
lives where he formerly did."--"To call on Mr. Seymour!" exclaimed
Fanny; "O my dear madam, do not go near him, I beseech you! He is a very
severe man, and will affront you, depend upon it."--"No matter,"
rejoined Agnes; "I have deserved humiliation, and will not shrink from
it: but his daughter Caroline, you know, was once my dearest friend, and
she will not suffer him to trample on the fallen: besides, it is
necessary that I should apply to him in order to succeed in my
scheme."--"What scheme?" replied Fanny.--"You would not approve it,
Fanny, therefore I shall not explain it to you at present; but, when I
return, perhaps I shall tell you all."--"But you are not going so soon?
not in day-light, surely?--If you should be insulted!"

Agnes started with horror at this proof which Fanny had unguardedly
given, how hateful her guilt had made her in a place that used to echo
with her praises;--but, recovering herself, she said that she should
welcome insults as part of the expiation which she meant to perform.
"But if you will not avoid them for your own sake, pray, pray do for
mine," exclaimed Fanny. "If you were to be ill used, I am sure I should
never survive it: so, if you must go to Mr. Seymour's, at least oblige
me in not going before dark:"--and, affected by this fresh mark of her
attachment, Agnes consented to stay.

At six o'clock in the evening, while the family was sitting round the
fire, and Caroline Seymour was expecting the arrival of her lover, to
whom she was to be united in a few days, Agnes knocked at Mr. Seymour's
door, having positively forbidden Fanny to accompany her. Caroline,
being on the watch for her intended bridegroom, started at the sound;
and though the knock which Agnes gave did not much resemble that of an
impatient lover, "still it might be he--he might mean to surprise her;"
and, half opening the parlour door, she listened with a beating heart
for the servant's answering the knock.

By this means she distinctly heard Agnes ask whether Mr. Seymour was at
home. The servant started, and stammered out that he believed his master
was within,--while Caroline springing forward exclaimed, "I know that
voice:--O yes! it must be she!"--But her father, seizing her arm,
pushed her back into the parlour, saying, "I also know that voice, and I
command you to stay where you are."--Then going up to Agnes, he desired
her to leave his house directly, as it should be no harbour for
abandoned women and unnatural children.

"But will you not allow it to shelter for one moment the wretched and
the penitent?" she replied.--"Father, my dear, dear father!" cried
Caroline, again coming forward, but was again driven back by Mr.
Seymour, who, turning to Agnes, bade her claim shelter from the man for
whom she had left the best of parents; and desiring the servant to shut
the door in her face, he re-entered the parlour, whence Agnes distinctly
heard the sobs of the compassionate Caroline.

But the servant was kinder than the master, and could not obey the
orders which he had received.--"O madam! Miss Fitzhenry, do you not
know me?" said he. "I once lived with you; have you forgotten little
William? I shall never forget you; you were the sweetest-tempered young
lady----That ever I should see you thus!"

Before Agnes could reply, Mr. Seymour again angrily asked why his orders
were not obeyed; and Agnes, checking her emotion, besought William to
deliver a message to his master. "Tell him," said she, "all I ask of him
is, that he will use his interest to get me the place of servant in the
house, the bedlam I would say, where----he will know what I mean," she
added, unable to utter the conclusion of the sentence:--and William, in
a broken voice, delivered the message.

"O my poor Agnes!" cried Caroline passionately:--"A servant! she a
servant and in such a place too!"--William adding in a low voice, "Ah!
miss! and she looks so poor and wretched!"

Meanwhile Mr. Seymour was walking up and down the room hesitating how to
act; but reflecting that it was easier to forbid any communication with
Agnes than to check it if once begun, he again desired William to shut
the door against her. "You must do it yourself, then," replied William,
"for I am not hard-hearted enough;"--and Mr. Seymour, summoning up
resolution, told Agnes that there were other governors to whom she might
apply, and then locked the door against her himself;--while Agnes slowly
and sorrowfully turned her steps towards the more hospitable roof of
Fanny. She had not gone far, however, when she heard a light footstep
behind her, and her name pronounced in a gentle, faltering voice.
Turning round she beheld Caroline Seymour, who, seizing her hand,
forced something into it, hastily pressed it to her lips, and, without
saying one word, suddenly disappeared, leaving Agnes motionless as a
statue, and, but for the parcel she held in her hand, disposed to think
that she was dreaming.--Then, eager to see what it contained, she
hastened back to Fanny, who heard with indignation the reception which
she had met from Mr. Seymour, but on her knees invoked blessings on the
head of Caroline; when on opening the parcel she found that it contained
twenty guineas inclosed in a paper, on which was written, but almost
effaced with tears, "For my still dear Agnes:--would I dare say more!"

This money the generous girl had taken from that allowed her for
wedding-clothes, and felt more delight in relieving with it the wants
even of a guilty fellow-creature, than purchasing the most splendid
dress could have afforded her. And her present did more than she
expected; it relieved the mind of Agnes: she had taught herself to meet
without repining the assaults of poverty, but not to encounter with
calmness the scorn of the friends whom she loved.

But Caroline and her kindness soon vanished again from her mind, and the
idea of her father, and her scheme, took entire possession of it.--"But
it might not succeed; no doubt Mr. Seymour would be her enemy;--still he
had hinted that she might apply to the other governors:" and Fanny
having learnt that they were all to meet at the bedlam on business the
next day, she resolved to write a note, requesting to be allowed to
appear before them.

This note, Fanny, who was not acquainted with its contents, undertook to
deliver, and, to the great surprise of Agnes (as she expected that Mr.
Seymour would oppose it), her request was instantly granted. Indeed it
was he himself who urged the compliance.

There was not a kinder-hearted man in the world than Mr. Seymour; and in
his severity towards Agnes he acted more from what he thought his duty,
than from his inclination. He was the father of several daughters; and
it was his opinion that a parent could not too forcibly inculcate on the
minds of young women the salutary truth, that loss of virtue must be to
them the loss of friends. Besides, his eldest daughter Caroline was
going to be married to the son of a very severe, rigid mother, then on a
visit at the house; and he feared that, if he took any notice of the
fallen Agnes, the old lady might conceive a prejudice against him and
her daughter-in-law. Added to these reasons, Mr. Seymour was a very vain
man, and never acted in any way without saying to himself, "What will
the world say?" Hence, though his first impulses were frequently good,
the determinations of his judgement were often contemptible.

But, however satisfied Mr. Seymour might be with his motives on this
occasion, his feelings revolted at the consciousness of the anguish
which he had occasioned Agnes. He wished, ardently wished, that he had
dared to have been kinder: and when Caroline, who was incapable of the
meanness of concealing any action which she thought it right to perform,
told him of the gift which she had in person bestowed on Agnes, he could
scarcely forbear commending her conduct; and while he forbade any future
intercourse between them, he was forced to turn away his head to hide
the tear of gratified sensibility, and the smile of parental exultation:
nevertheless, he did not omit to bid her keep her own counsel, "for, if
your conduct were known," added he, "what would the world say?"

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.

They did so in despite of Mr. Seymour and others, for astonishment had
at first deprived them of the power of moving; and the horses, before
the witnesses of this sudden and strange event had recovered their
recollection, had gone too far to allow themselves to be stopped.

The card with Lord Mountcarrol's name explained what at first had
puzzled and confounded as well as alarmed them; and Fanny, who had
fainted at sight of his lordship, because she knew him, altered as he
was, to be Edward's father, and the bane of Agnes, now recovering
herself, conjured Mr. Seymour to follow him immediately, and tell him
that Edward was bequeathed to her care.

Mr. Seymour instantly ordered post horses, and in about an hour after
set off in pursuit of the ravisher.

But the surprise and consternation of Fanny and the rest of the
mourners, was not greater than that of Lady Mountcarrol at sight of her
lord's strange conduct. "What does this outrage mean, my lord?" she
exclaimed in a faltering voice; "and whose child is that?"--"It is _my
child_, madam," replied he; "and I will never resign him but with life."
Then pressing the astonished boy to his bosom, he for some minutes
sobbed aloud,--while Lady Mountcarrol, though she could not help feeling
compassion for the agony which the seducer of Agnes must experience at
such a moment, was not a little displeased and shocked at finding
herself the wife of that Clifford, whose name she had so lately heard
coupled with that of villain.

But her attention was soon called from reflections so unpleasant by the
cries of Edward, whose surprise at being seized and carried away by a
stranger now yielded to terror, and who, bursting from Lord Mountcarrol,
desired to go back to his mamma, Fanny, and Mr. Seymour.

"What! and leave your own father, Edward?" asked his agitated
parent.--"Look at me,--I am your father;--but I suppose, your mother, as
well she might, taught you to hate me?"--"My mamma told me it was wicked
to hate any body: and I am sure I have no papa: I had a grandpapa, but
he is gone to heaven along with my mamma, Fanny says, and she is my
mamma now." And again screaming and stamping with impatience, he
insisted on going back to her.

But at length, by promises of riding on a fine horse, and of sending for
Fanny to ride with him, he was pacified. Then with artless readiness he
related his mother's way of life, and the odd ways of his grandpapa: and
thus, by acquainting Lord Mountcarrol with the sufferings and the
virtuous exertions of Agnes, he increased his horror of his own conduct,
and his regret at not having placed so noble-minded a woman at the head
of his family. But whence arose the story of her death he had yet to
learn.

In a few hours they reached the seat which he had acquired by his second
marriage; and there too, in an hour after, arrived Mr. Seymour and the
husband of Fanny.

Lord Mountcarrol expected this visit, and received them courteously;
while Mr. Seymour was so surprised at seeing the once healthy and
handsome Clifford changed to an emaciated valetudinarian, and carrying
in his face the marks of habitual intemperance, that his indignation was
for a moment lost in pity. But recovering himself, he told his lordship
that he came to demand justice for the outrage which he had committed,
and in the name of the friend to whom Miss Fitzhenry had, in case of her
sudden death, bequeathed her child, to insist on his being restored to
her.

"We will settle that point presently," replied Lord Mountcarrol; "but
first I conjure you to tell me all that has happened since we parted, to
her whose name I have not for years been able to repeat, and whom, as
well as this child, I have also for years believed dead."

"I will, my lord," answered Mr. Seymour; "but I warn you, that if you
have any feeling it will be tortured by the narration."

"If I have any feeling!" cried his lordship: "but go on, sir; from you,
sir--from you, as--as _her friend_, I can bear any thing."

Words could not do justice to the agonies of Lord Mountcarrol, while Mr.
Seymour, beginning with Agnes's midnight walk to ----, went through a
recital of her conduct and sufferings, and hopes and anxieties, and
ended with the momentary recovery and death-scene of her father.

But when Lord Mountcarrol discovered that Agnes supposed his not
making any inquiries concerning her or the child proceeded from brutal
indifference concerning their fate, and that, considering him as a
monster of inhumanity, she had regarded him not only with contempt,
but abhorrence, and seemed to have dismissed him entirely from her
remembrance, he beat his breast, he cast himself on the floor in frantic
anguish, lamenting, in all the bitterness of fruitless regret, that
Agnes died without knowing how much he loved her, and without suspecting
that, while she was supposing him unnaturally forgetful of her and her
child, he was struggling with illness, caused by her desertion, and
with a dejection of spirits which he had never, at times, been able to
overcome; execrating at the same time the memory of his father, and
Wilson, whom he suspected of having intentionally deceived him.

To conclude--Pity for the misery and compunction of Lord Mountcarrol,
and a sense of the advantages both in education and fortune that would
accrue to little Edward from living with his father, prevailed on Mr.
Seymour and the husband of Fanny to consent to his remaining where he
was;--and from that day Edward was universally known as his lordship's
son,--who immediately made a will bequeathing him a considerable
fortune.

Lord Mountcarrol was then sinking fast into his grave, the victim of his
vices, and worn to the bone by the corroding consciousness that Agnes
had died in the persuasion of his having brutally neglected her.--That
was the bitterest pang of all! She had thought him so vile, that she
could not for a moment regret him!

His first wife he had despised because she was weak and illiterate, and
hated because she had brought him no children. His second wife was too
amiable to be disliked; but, though he survived his marriage with her
two years, she also failed to produce an heir to the title. And while he
contemplated in Edward the mind and person of his mother, he was almost
frantic with regret that he was not legally his son; and he cursed the
hour when with short-sighted cunning he sacrificed the honour of Agnes
to his views of family aggrandizement.

But, selfish to the last moment of his existence, it was a consciousness
of his own misery, not of that which he had inflicted, which prompted
his expressions of misery and regret; and he grudged and envied Agnes
the comfort of having been able to despise and forget him.

       *       *       *       *       *

Peace to the memory of Agnes Fitzhenry!--and may the woman who, like
her, has been the victim of artifice, self-confidence, and temptation,
like her endeavour to regain the esteem of the world by patient
suffering, and virtuous exertion; and look forward to the attainment of
it with confidence!--But may she whose innocence is yet secure, and
whose virtues still boast the stamp of chastity, which can alone make
them current in the world, tremble with horror at the idea of listening
to the voice of the seducer, lest the image of a father, a mother, a
brother, a sister, or some other fellow-being, whose peace of mind has
been injured by her deviation from virtue, should haunt her path through
life; and she who might, perhaps, have contemplated with fortitude the
wreck of her own happiness, be doomed to pine with fruitless remorse at
the consciousness of having destroyed that of another.--For where is
the mortal who can venture to pronounce that his actions are of
importance to no one, and that the consequences of his virtues or his
vices will be confined to himself alone!


           THE END.

    Printed by Richard Taylor,
    Shoe-Lane, London.






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