GRAVES.

Perfectly what were the contents?

EVELYN.

After hints, cautions, and admonitions-half in irony, half in earnest (Ah, poor Mordaunt had known the world!), it proceeded-but I'll read it to you :-" Having selected you as my heir, because I think money a trust to be placed where it seems likely to be best employed, I now-not impose a condition, but ask a favour, If you have formed no other and insuparable attachment, I could wish to suggest your choice: my two nearest female relations are my niece Georgina, and my third cousin, Clara Douglas, the daughter of a once dear friend. If you could see in either of these one whom you could make your wife, such would be a marriage that, if I live long enough to return to England, I would seek to bring about before I die." My friend, this is not a legal condition the fortune does not rest on it; yet, need I say that my gratitude considers it a moral obligation? Several months have elapsed since thus called upon-I ought now to decide you hear the names— Clara Douglas is the woman who rejected me!

%

GRAVES.

But now she would accept you!

EVELYN.

And do you think I am so base a slave to passion, that I would owe to my gold what was denied to my affection?

But

GRAVES.

you must choose one, in common gratitude; you

ought to do so-yes, there you are right.

Besides, you

are constantly at the house-the world observes it: you must have raised hopes in one of the girls. Yes; it is time to decide between her whom you love, and her whom you do not!

EVELYN.

Of the two, then, I would rather marry where I should exact the least. A marriage, to which each can bring sober esteem and calm regard, may not be happiness, but it may be content. But to marry one whom you could adore, and whose heart is closed to you—to yearn for the treasure, and only to claim the casketto worship the statue that you never may warm to life -Oh! such a marriage would be a hell the more terrible because Paradise was in sight.

GRAVES.

Georgina is pretty, but vain and frivolous.-(Aside) But he has no right to be fastidious-he has never known Maria!(Aloud.) Yes, my dear friend, now I think on it, you will be as wretched as myself!-When you are married we will mingle our groans together!

EVELYN.

66

You may misjudge Georgina; she may have a nobler nature than appears on the surface. On the day, but before the hour, in which the will was read, a letter, in a strange or disguised hand, signed From an unknown friend to Alfred Evelyn," and enclosing what to a girl would have been a considerable sum, was sent to a poor woman for whom I had implored charity, and whose address I had given only to Georgina.

GRAVES.

Why not assure yourself?

EVELYN.

Because I have not dared. For sometimes, against my reason, I have hoped that it might be Clara! (taking a letter from his bosom and looking at it). No, I can't recognise the hand. Graves, I detest that.

No; Clara! But I've already, thank Heaven! taken some revenge upon her. Come nearer. (Whispers) I've bribed Sharp to say that Mordaunt's letter to me contained a codicil leaving Clara Douglas 20,0007.

GRAVES.

And didn't it? How odd, then, not to have mentioned her in his will.

EVELYN.

One of his caprices: besides, Sir John wrote hini word that Lady Franklin had adopted her. But I'm glad of it-I've paid the money-she's no more a dependant. No one can insult her now she owes it all to me, and does not guess it, man-does not guess it! -owes it to me, me whom she rejected ;-me, the poor scholar!-Ha! ha!-there's some spite in that, Eh?

GRAVES.

You're a fine fellow, Evelyn, and we understand

each other. Perhaps Clara may have seen the address, and dictated this letter, after all !

EVELYN.

Do you think so?-I'll

go to the house this instant!

GRAVES.

Eh? Humph! Then I'll

go with That Lady

you.

Franklin is a fine woman! If she were not so gay, I

think I could

EVELYN.

No; no; don't think any such thing: women are even worse than men.

GRAVES.

True; to love,is a boy's madness!

EVELYN.

To feel is to suffer!

GRAVES.

To hope is to be deceived.

EVELYN.

I have done with romance!

GRAVES.

Mine is buried with Maria!

EVELYN.

If Clara did but write this!

GRAVES.

Make haste, or Lady Franklin will be out!-A vale

of tears-a vale of tears!

EVELYN.

A vale of tears, indeed!

Re-enter GRAVES for his hat.

[Exeunt.

And I left my hat behind me! Just like my luck! If I had been bred a hatter, little boys would have come into the world without heads.*

[Exit.

SCENE IV.

Drawing-rooms at SIR JOHN VESEY'S, as in Scene I., Act I

LADY FRANKLIN, CLARA, Servant.

LADY FRANKLIN.

Past two, and I have so many places to go to. Tell Philipps I want the carriage directly-instantly.

SERVANT.

I beg pardon, my Lady; Philipps told me to say the young horse had fallen lame, and could not be used today.

LADY FRANKLIN.

[Exit.

Well, on second thought, that is lucky; now I have an excuse for not making a great many tedious visits. I

* For this melancholy jest Mr. Graves is indebted to a hypochondriacal abbé. The Author read it some years ago in one of the French Ana-; he cannot remember which.