ght have done had he been uncouth and vulgar; she even
kept her resolution till sight of his necessity and helplessness had
assisted her benevolence to vanquish the warmth of temper, and taught
her to respect the claims of a fellow creature in distress. Isabel had
by this time discovered the state of her own heart; and the superior
rank of the object of her affections was not the only reason for
changing love into despair. Her dear father had often in his former
ravings mentioned Lord Bellingham as the ally of Lucifer, and likely to
succeed him on the infernal throne. At those times it must indeed be
remembered, that he mistook his own children for dancing fiends, but his
aversion to Bellingham was rooted, and at every eclipse of reason he
renewed his execrations on a person, whose name, in his tranquil
moments, never passed his lips. She loved the son of this man; this
villain; for so she must think him, as her father, even in his most
eccentric moments, never so confounded the distinctions of honour and
guilt as to misrepresent characters. Nor could his rooted aversion
proceed from the difference in their political principles, for it was in
her early years, before the troubles commenced, that he mentioned
Bellingham as the infernal spirit who had driven him to the mountains;
and in every allusion he confirmed the idea of a private rather than a
public quarrel. Time and absence had increased rather than weakened the
affection and reverence which Isabel bore to her father. His eminent
services to the King, his bravery and activity, unimpaired by wounds,
imprisonment, or declining years, made her prouder of such a parent than
she would have been of one seated on the right hand of power. And had
she cherished and avowed an affection for the son of a cruel enemy to
her honoured father!--What a want of filial piety, what a shameful
inattention to his wrongs would it be, knowingly to confirm such an
unnatural inclination! Whatever pain it cost her, she determined to
release her heart from the fetters which gratitude and pity had combined
to form.

The resolution was extremely noble, but to execute it was superlatively
difficult. Lord Sedley was daily before her eyes in the interesting
characters of suffering magnanimity or ardent attachment. When his
unclosed wounds throbbed with extreme anguish, could she refuse to
minister to his relief? When returning ease allowed him to direct the
grateful acknowledgments of a devoted he