bereft of all fortitude and patience. Wounded by the neglect
of the world, his confidence in Walter had been his preservative from
misanthropy; and when vexed at the recollection of his own imprudent
frankness and folly, in provoking the resentment of powerful foes, he
soothed his galled spirit by considering, that the guileless simplicity
of his nature, which had raised those foes, had also secured him a
faithful friend. That bright creation of his fancy disappeared, a chaos
of duplicity, dark contrivance, and injustice remained: Walter proved
false, his sister unnatural, his King a tyrant. So different were these
objects from what he once believed them, that he doubted whether life
afforded any realities. Did his Isabel really choose him for his own
merit, or was latent ambition the spur to her affection? Did the
village-pastor seek out and console a stranger from motives of Christian
benevolence, or had he discovered his rank and hopes, and on them formed
expectation of advancement?

Whatever the most unalterable and entire affection, acting on a noble
mind and an active temper, could do, Isabel performed with cheerful
tenderness and never-wearied patience. To assist in supporting her
family, she took the farm into her own management, and endeavoured to
rouse the attention of her much-altered husband, by pointing out the
humble, but secure comforts, which husbandry afforded. She dwelt on
every example of unhappy greatness; she reminded him, that to be
deceived by specious characters, was the common error of superior
understandings, who, lightly valuing the goods of fortune, never suspect
that to others they will prove irresistible temptations. Her surprise,
she said, was not that the artful should impose upon the honourable, or
the mean ensnare the magnanimous; but that the former should have the
audacity to attempt to cozen those who were every way above them,
because, in so doing, they must depend upon the operation of qualities,
which their narrow hearts and warped principles could not allow them to
estimate. She once went so far as to say, that it was not superior
discernment, which enabled her to suspect the perfidiousness of Walter.
She did not view him with the partiality of youthful affections; she was
ignorant of the many ties which bound him to a brave and grateful heart.
Her anxiety for her Allan kept her attention fixed on one object, the
progress which his agent made; and when she saw that the cause did n