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visiting distance, though not so near as the above-mentioned families, was Torpington Castle, the seat of viscount Lulworth, which castle, for reasons that shall appear hereafter, deserves a paragraph to itself.

However let down in his high-raised expectations, still there were reasons that rendered Horatio Somerville extremely desirous of removing his sister Julia from the neighbourhood of London. He knew that, to her harassed feelings, a hermitage, in a remote part of the country, would be preferable to a palace in Kent or Surreyplaces which, since her misfortunes, she had already tried, and where each familiar object recalled to her sorrowing bosom the bleeding images of her murdered happi

ness.

Having transmitted a succinct account of his disappointment, Somerville submitted to this cherished sister whether the Lodge, even in its present state (and, to his sanguine mind, it appeared capable of much

much improvement), might not be an endurable temporary residence; and the answer he received from her was such as to induce him to take it for a twelvemonth.

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The morning before their final departure from London, the brother and sister lingered together, affectionately talking over the mournful and terrible events which had rendered that great city, a desert to them.-"I must be off to Coutts's," said Somerville, at length abruptly rising. "One always leaves such a variety of things to be done at the last moment." Julia rose too. i

"One word more," said Horatio, as his hand rested on the lock of the door. "Hark ye you needn't say to our numerous very dear correspondents, and your cursed female gossips, the exact state of the case at Rothbury. Leave the plantations, pleasure-grounds, and shrubbery, where my friend Puff's plastic hand has placed them. It is not necessary we should be supposed to be gone to rusticate

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in a hovel. Better be envied than pitied, you know."

Julia laid her hand earnestly on Somerville's arm." Do not-oh, do not, dearest brother, again repeat that false-false maxim! What is it but, in other words, to say, better hang out false colours-better appear what you are not-better lie, cheat, and deceive."

"You are warm, Julia."

"Ah, Somerville! had others not been warm, I should not be now seeking an asylum from agonizing recollection. I should not-oh God! oh God!"

She held her hands tightly over her throbbing temples.

Horatio approached her with a look of the tenderest pity." My beloved sister! did I not, when misfortune blasted the opening promise of your youth, kneeling, take an oath never to separate my destiny from yours to supply to you the place of father, friend, and guardian? I now ratify that oath, in the

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presence of all your

sorrows,

sorrows, attesting, as its witnesses, your sufferings, youth, and innocence; and may the good forsake me in this world, and Heaven abandon me in the next, on the day that I forget thee, Julia!"

The feelings of Horatio Somerville were impetuous, as his heart was good; but he had a buoyancy and elasticity of spirits that prevented any subject, however painful, from long depressing him. His sister Julia, on the contrary, but scarcely entered on the threshold of active existence, had, for ever, bidden adieu to the gaiety of youth. One fearful and dread calamity had cast a black cloud over her late brilliant prospects: but that affliction, which would have crushed a meaner spirit, had only expanded and elevated hers; it produced a premature but rich development of her understanding and reasoning faculties.

Julia Somerville united to the innocence, modesty, and candour, that suited her age, the solidity and experience of a

more

more advanced period. Misfortune had, to her eyes, torn off the mask from the world's gaudy and specious allurements; she could already judge of things as they are, and, like the gifted but sad seer of Glenfinlas, might at once boast and lament the melancholy privilege of estimating the present and future in all their mournful reality. Still she was liable to the dominion of strong passions, or rather strong affections, the only passions a woman ought to know; in other words, she was still accessible to the thrills of grief and joy and Julia possessed beauty too, sweet and dangerous gift! powerful to excite reciprocal attachment, but not to preserve it; and taste to discriminate merit and applaud it; and sensibility to weep agony the insufficiency of all those endowments to defend the lacerated bosom from misfortune.

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Scarcely were they settled in their new abode, when Horatio Somerville asked his sister,

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