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-I had done all for your aggrandizement—I had raised you from beggary and obscurity to wealth and greatness, and it is you who have brought me to shame, and misery, and poverty; and am I to have nothing to forgive? I humbled myself in the dust to you, and you was deaf to my prayers; I told you that my life was in your hands; that it did not pay the forfeit of your rash and inhuman conduct is no merit of yours; have I then nothing to forgive? But I do forgive," said she, extending the hand she had hitherto refused, but with an air and manner of haughty condescension; "my wrongs and injuries have been great, but I forgive them."

Gertrude almost recoiled with horror from the touch of one whose mind was still so perverted, and whose soul seemed to have been corroded instead of purified by the judgment that had fallen upon her; but she merely took her hand, and said

"You say true-mere human forgiveness is, indeed, a thing of nought-more blessed to them who give than to them who receive-but I prayOh! God, do thou hear my prayer, that Thy forgiveness may be vouchsafed!"

She turned and left the apartment-She did not wound her sisters by repeating what had passed, but her own heart felt lighter that she had been enabled to pray in sincerity of heart for heavenly forgiveness, even to her who had wrought all her wo.

CHAPTER CVI.

"Good the beginning, good the end shall be, And transitory evil only makes The good end happier."

SOUTHEY.

THE following day a plain but handsome carriage, with suitable attendants, stood at uncle Adam's door, which he at first seemed ashamed of; but after a little coyness and confusion, he let Gertrude understand it was for her accommodation, and proposed that they should together make trial of it.

Gertrude had never appeared abroad (except in her visit to Mrs. St. Clair) from the time of her arrival at Mr. Ramsay's, and a thousand painful feelings rushed upon her at the thoughts of exposing herself to the public gaze, and the public gaze of a small, idle, gossipping, impertinent country town; she was, therefore, on the point of expressing her repugnance; but she thought it would be unkind, ungrateful, when he had sacrificed his feelings so far as to set up a carriage for her, if she did not appear to be gratified by this proof of his affection. She therefore accepted of his proposal, and away they drove. She was not yet sufficiently mistress of her thoughts to bestow much obserVOL. VI.-8

vation on the shifting scenes as they passed along, and she was scarcely aware of where she was, or on what she looked, when she found herself at the very door of Bloom-Park. They entered, and a respectable looking housekeeper and butler, with inferiors, stood ready to receive them.

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"There's your Leddy," said uncle Adam, giving Gertrude a slight push, by way of introducing her; 'see that you a' behave discreetly, an' when ye want ony thing ye maun gang to her for't-for she kens mair aboot thae things than me."

This was quite an oration for uncle Adam, and having made it, he stotted in to one of the public rooms, and Gertrude followed him.

"My dear uncle," said she, for she still continued that appellation, "how your kindness overpowers me I cannot express how much I feel

it."

"Hoot, it's naething," said he, impatiently; "so dinna gang to fash yourself aboot that-the best thanks you can gi'e me is to let me see the red on your cheek, and the smile in your e'e that used to be there, and then I'll believe that I've done you some gude-but no till then." And he affectionately patted her shoulder, which was going great lengths for uncle Adam.

Every thing had evidently been done with a view to gratify Gertrude's taste and feelings; and there was a good taste and elegance in the arrangements that had recently been made, for which, with all his good intentions, she could scarcely give uncle Adam credit.. It must be Lyndsay's doing-Lyndsay, who knew so well all her habits and pursuits, had provided every indulgence and facility for both-and that, too, merely in a general way, without descending to all the little minutia which it is woman's prerogative to arrange.

The news of Mr. Ramsay's establishment at Bloom-Park soon circulated in the neighbourhood, and was not long of reaching the ears of Mrs. Major Waddell, and caused them to tingle with indignation and envy. In the midst of all her finery she was not happy, for Gertrude, as uncle Adam's heiress, was the thorn in her side--the bitter drop in her cup-the black man in her closet-the Mordecai at her gate! Such is ever the effect of any baleful passion, especially when operating on a weak mind, and so difficult is it to form an estimate of worldly enjoyment by the symbols of outward prosperity. Her only hope was, that she would be able to prove uncle Adam in his dotage, and, for that purpose, she would fain have established a system of espionage betwixt Thornbank and Bloom-Park; but all her schemes were counteracted by uncle Adam's sagacity. The only way in which she could therefore give vent to her malice was when in company with Gertrude, by taking, or rather making every opportunity of resting all claim to distinction solely on the ground of birth---family--connexions, and

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other such adventitious circumstances, as the weak vulgar mind lays hold of to exalt itself in the eyes of those who must be weaker than itself to be so dazzled. But in this she was met by uncle Adam, who guarded Gertrude, in aught that in any way concerned her, as a faithful shepherd's colly does the lamb committed to his charge, and he was now too happy to be discomposed even by Mrs. Waddell-he had found something to love which had long been the desideratum in his life, and he was gradually getting more benign and mellow beneath Gertrude's gentle influence. The first inconveniences of a change of residence and habits fairly over, he even began to take some interest in rural avocations, only stipulating that he was never to be spoken to on any of the numerous evils inseparable from extensive property, and which, not unfrequently, embitter the peace of the possessor—such as bad tenants-bad crops -bad weather-bad servants-poachers-robbers -trespassers-and all the thousand ills that wealth is heir to, and which, perhaps, brings happiness more upon a par between the rich and the poor than is generally supposed.

One of the first to pay her respects to the new heiress of Bloom-Park was Miss Pratt. That lady's absence, or, at least, her silence, for so long a period, remains to be accounted for to such as take an interest in her fate. But the simple matter of fact was, that she had been refreshing and invigorating herself at Harrowgate, at the expense of her friend and ally, Sir Peter Wellwood, and had but just returned to give the lie direct to the current report of Gertrude's having been rejected by her lover on the discovery of her birth. This, she roundly asserted, was so far from being the case, that she had, with her own ears, heard her refuse him again and again--it was consistent with her knowledge, that she had been long engaged to Edward Lyndsay--and, although the little episode of the turret scene was somewhat of a staggerer, yet even that Miss Pratt contrived to bolt, and settled the matter with herself, by her having had a great cold and ringing in her ears all that day, which had prevented her hearing exactly what passed. She, therefore, boldly claimed her five guineas from uncle Adam, though how far she was entitled to them was a doubtful question, and might have borne a dispute-and time was when uncle Adam would as soon have given her his five fingers as his five guineas upon such debateable ground; but now he was not

disposed to cavil at trifles, and he paid the money at the first suggestion, only taking every possible precaution against the possibility of his giving her a note more than enough,

"Well, my dear," said she, displaying her winnings to Gertrude; "you see I can sing a blithe note at your wedding-ha! ha! ha!—and, bythe-by, do you know the news is, that a certain cast-off lover of your's is on the top of his marriage with his old flame, the Duchess of St. Ives? They're both together at Paris, it seems, and it's all settled. I wish them good of one another, for I fancy they're well met, but whether they'll hang long together is another story."

Gertrude could not hear of this event without some degree of emotion, but it soon passed away; and when, at the end of some months, she read a pompous detail of it in the newspapers, it was with feelings far removed from either envy or regret. Still less would they have been called for could she have foreseen the termination which a few years brought round. Without the cement of one virtuous principle, vice soon dissolved the tie which united them. Injured and betrayed by a faithless wife, the Earl of Rossville fought to avenge his honour, and fell in the cause. But long before then, Lyndsay's virtues, and the fervour and disinterestedness of his attachment, had insensibly created for him a warm interest in Gertrude's affections. As has been truly said, "In considering the actions of the mind, it should never be forgotten that its affections pass into each other like the tints of the rainbow; though we can easily distinguish them when they have assumed a decided colour, yet we can never determine where each hue begins."*

The bewildering glare of romantic passion no longer shed its fair but perishable lustre on the horizon of her existence; but the calm radiance of piety and virtue rose with steady ray, and brightened the future course of a happy and a useful life; and Gertrude, as the wife of Edward Lyndsay, lived to bless the day that had deprived her of her earthly Inheritance. To that, indeed, by the death of Lord Rossville, who, dying without a family, was succeeded by Lyndsay, she was again restored, with a mind enlightened as to the true uses and advantages of power and prosperity. Thus,

"All our ill

May, if directed well, find happy end."

* Quarterly Review.

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LETTERS,

&c. &c.

PREFACE.

If

A VOLUME of travels rarely or never, in our days, appears in Spain; in England, on the contrary, scarcely any works are so numerous. an Englishman spends the summer in any of the mountainous provinces, or runs over to Paris for six weeks, he publishes the history of his travels; and if a work of this kind be announced in France, so great a competition is excited among the London booksellers, that they import it sheet by sheet as it comes from the press, and translate and print it by piecemeal. The greater number of such books must necessarily be of little value; all, however, find readers, and the worst of them adds something to the stock of general information.

We seldom travel; and they among us who do, never give their journals to the public. Is it because literature can hardly be said to have become a trade among us, or because vanity is no part of our national character? The present work, therefore, is safe from comparison, and will have the advantage of novelty. If it subject me to the charge of vanity myself, I shall be sorry for the imputation, but not conscious of deserving it. I went to England under circumstances unusually favourable, and remained there eighteen months, during the greater part of which I was domesticated in an English family. They knew that it was my intention to publish an account of what I saw, and aided me in my inquiries with a kindness which I must ever remember. My remarks were communicated as they occurred, in letters to my own family, and to my father confessor; and they from time to time suggested to me such objects of observation as might otherwise perhaps have been overlooked. I have thought it better to revise these letters, inserting such matters as further research and more knowledge enabled me to add, rather than to methodize the whole; having observed in England, that works of this kind, wherein the subjects are presented in the order in which they occurred, are always better received than those of a more systematical arrangement: indeed they are less likely to be erroneous, and their errors are more excusable. In those letters which relate to the state of religion, I have availed myself of the remarks with which my father confessor instructed me in his corre

spondence. He has forbidden me to mention his name; but it is my duty to state that the most valuable observations upon this important subject, and, in particular, those passages in which the fathers are so successfully quoted, would not have enriched these letters but for his assistance.

In thus delineating to my countrymen the domestic character and habits of the English, and the real state of England, I have endeavoured to be strictly impartial: and if self-judgment may in such a case be trusted, it is my belief that I have succeeded. Certainly, I am not conscious of having exaggerated or extenuated any thing in the slightest degree of heightening the bright or the dark parts of the picture for the sake of effectof inventing what is false, nor of concealing what is true, so as to lie by implication. Mistakes and misrepresentations there may, and, perhaps, must be; I hope they will neither be found numerous nor important, as I know they are not wilful; and I trust, that whatever may be the faults and errors of the work, nothing will appear in it inconsistent with the love of my country, which I feel in common with every Spaniard, and that submission, which, in common with every catholic, I owe to the Holy Church.

PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR.

THE remarks of foreign travellers upon our own country have always been so well received by the public, that no apology can be necessary for offering to it the present translation. The author of this work seems to have enjoyed more advantages than most of his predecessors, and to have availed himself of them with remarkable diligence. He boasts also of his impartiality: to this praise, in general, he is entitled; but there are some things which he has seen with a jaundiced eye. It is manifest that he is bigoted to the deplorable superstitions of his country; and we may well suppose that those parts of the work in which his bigotry is most apparent, have not been improved by the aid for which he thanks his father confessor. The translator has seldom thought it necessary to offer any comments upon the palpable errors and mis-statements which this spirit has sometimes occasioned: the few notes which he has annexed are distinguished by the letters TR.

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