with her and his son. A second son was born in consequence of this re-union, seventeen years younger than the first. Soon after that event, the death of the Chevalier* rendered her services in Scotland unnecessary, as the young Prince entertained so much jealousy of the friends and counsellors of his predecessor, that he admitted none of them into his confidence. She, therefore, with her children, joined her husband in France.

Lord Setoun and his eldest son, Lord Roslin, were eventually obliged, by circumstances, to enter the military service of France, which at that time was at peace with this country; and they were serving under Marshal Luckner, in the Netherlands, against Austria, when England declared war, and sent an army under the command of the Duke of York, to join the allies. At the disastrous battle of Fomers, where the British troops performed prodigies of valour, Lord Setoun and his son first drew their swords against their country, and both fell on the field of battle. The second son, now Lord Setoun, who had also very recently entered the army, was at this time serving in the campaign on the Rhine. He afterwards married a Swiss lady, of noble family, by whom he had one son, to whom he was passionately attached. He was, however, compelled to leave this darling child, with his wife and mother, in order to pursue his military career, in which he was rising rapidly to distinction. His military talents had gained the confidence of Buonaparte, whom he accompanied into Italy; and after the victorious battle of Lodi, he was ordered, at the head of a French force, augmented by a strong body of Corsican ex

* 1765.

iles, to expel the English from Corsica.* Success attended the expedition. The English were compelled to evacuate the island; but Lord Setoun perished. Thus, by a striking fatality, the father and the two sons fell, on different occasions, the very first time their swords were raised in battle against their countrymen.

The intelligence of the death of her husband, in Corsica, and of her only brother, Colonel Choiseul, who fell with him, proved fatal to the delicate health of Lord Setoun's wife, who sunk into the grave, leaving their child to the care of his paternal grandmother, Margaret St. Clair, the Dowager Lady Setoun. She immediately left Switzerland, to which she had no longer any tie, and set off for Scotland with her orphan grandson. She was far advanced in years, and her only hope was to live to consign her helpless charge to the care of her nearest surviving relative, Bertram St. Clair, second cousin of the infant Lord Setoun,—and to breathe her last in the home of her ancestors. But, in consequence of the war, all direct communication between France and England was impracticable; and it was after a long, circuitous, and painful pilgrimage, beset with difficulties and hardships, and rendered ten-fold more severe by the pressure of poverty, that, worn out with age, with grief, with privation, and suffering, she reached the end of her earthly pilgrimage at the miserable cabarêt of Ballyhulish, and with her dying breath, consigned the young Lord Setoun to the care of Lord Montfort.

In accepting the charge, doubtless, in the first instance, Lord Montfort was actuated by the generous wish to save and protect the destitute boy,

and relieve the agonizing anxiety of his dying grandmother. No motive, however, could render justifiable the imposture of passing off the child of another as his own, and thus excluding even his hated enemy from his lawful inheritance. But Lord Montfort, as his whole life and conduct evinced, possessed no power of principle to restrain his impetuous passions; he was guided by the impulse of strong feelings, whether they were good or evil, -whether they sprung from love or hate,-from generosity or revenge. For the friendless orphan boy, thus thrown upon his benevolence-thus sent, as it were, by Providence, to supply the place of his own,--he felt all the love of a father; and when, to the wish of securing to this noble child a title and inheritance equal to that of his birth, from which the misfortunes of his family had cut him off for ever, was added the vindictive desire to mortify and disappoint the man he hated, and debar him and his posterity from that succession which would otherwise be theirs ;-we cannot wonder that Lord Montfort yielded without hesitation, and almost without compunction, to the powerful temptation that beset him. He contemplated with pride his future representative, who was destined to perpetuate his name as his son. The secret of his real birth was confined to his own bosom, and therefore he vainly thought it was impossible it ever could be discovered.

But time will shew.

CAROLINE had heard the particulars of his adoption of Lindsay briefly, from Lord Montfort. Whatever were the sentiments her pure sense of right might dictate of his conduct, she was not called upon to express any opinion upon it; and indeed it is quite certain, that she thought very little at this moment about questions of morality, or about any thing except the transporting expectation that she should soon meet with Lindsay-never-as, she hoped-to part from him again. Delusive expectation! But let us not anticipate. Let the book of fate-by which we mean of this historyduly unfold the important events recorded in its leaves.

Caroline had calculated at least a hundred times, the hours and minutes that had elapsed since the departure of the courier, and those that must elapse before He could possibly arrive. (The

reader will please to observe, that at this moment there was to her but one HE in the world)-she ought therefore to have made an accurate computation; and she had, for the hundredth time, arrived at the conclusion, that in about six hours he might possibly arrive ;-when a travelling carriage drove furiously to the door. She flew to the window; even before the carriage stopped, a gentleman opened the door for himself, and sprung out, threw one glance to where she stood, and in a few seconds she was clasped in the arms and to the heart of Lindsay.

Life has few moments such as these-moments worth years of common existence ;-but both the lovers felt the truth, that

'Tis bliss, but to a certain bound,
Beyond 'tis agony.

It was indeed the agony of bliss-but agony so delightful, that although it could only find relief in tears, those external symbols of sorrow-its very remembrance never afterwards returned upon the hearts of either without renewed emotion.

It was

long before a word was exchanged between them. Broken exclamations, mingled with every epithet tenderness could dictate, were all he could utter, as he clasped her again and again to his throbbing heart.

In happiness, if possible more exquisite from the contrast of their past misery, the enraptured lovers spent a week of bliss before Lord Montfort returned from Rome, bringing with him, as might be expected, the full and joyful consent of Lady St. Clair to her daughter's union with Lindsay. The marriage was fixed to take place in three weeks time, when her Ladyship promised to return