rivate life. His manners
to his superiors, and generally to his equals, were bland and
insinuating; to his inferiors he was overbearing, haughty, and severe,
except when he had some particular point to carry, and then he could
cringe to and fawn upon the vilest. He had a peculiar method of entering
into men's hearts, and worming from each whatever best suited his
purpose; but the principle upon which he invariably acted, was, to
extract the honey from the rose, and then scatter its leaves to the
whirlwind and the blast. Devoid of every thing like moral or religious
feeling, he used Puritanism as a cloak for selfishness and sin; and
though he had often cursed his good character when it stood in the way
of his pleasures, yet it was too needful to be cast off as a worthless
garment. A plotting mind united to a graceful exterior, is as dangerous
to the interests of society as a secret mine to a besieged city,
inasmuch as it is impossible to calculate upon the evils that may
suddenly arise either from the one or the other.

Sir Willmott Burrell, of Burrell, had managed to make himself acquainted
with many of Sir Robert Cecil's secrets; and even those he had not
heard, he guessed at, with that naturally acute knowledge which is
rarely in the wrong. He was too great a sensualist to be indifferent to
the beauty of Constance, which, like all sensualists, he considered the
sole excellence of woman; but he arraigned the wisdom of Nature in
endowing aught so fair with mind, or enriching it with soul; and the
dignity and purity of his destined bride, instead of making him proud,
made him angry and abashed.

Constance heard of Burrell's grace, of Burrell's wit, and
sometimes--though even amongst ladies it was a disputed point--of his
beauty, without ever being able to discover any thing approaching to
these qualities in her future husband; and certainly he never appeared
to so little advantage as when in her presence: her eye kept him under a
subjection, the force of which he was ashamed to acknowledge; and
although there could be no question that his chief desire for the
approaching alliance proceeded from a cherished affection for the broad
acres and dark woods of the heiress of Cecil, yet he bitterly regretted
that the only feeling the lady manifested towards him was one of decided
coldness--he almost feared of contempt. The day after her mother's
funeral, she had refused to see him, although he knew that she had been
abroad wit