rtune or
expectations, and her parents might naturally be anxious to compromise
me. She had taken counsel, etc. etc. She had sought for guidance where
it was, etc. Feeling what her duty was, she had determined to speak. Sir
Miles, a man of excellent judgment in the affairs of this world (though
he knew and sought a better), fully agreed with her in opinion, nay,
desired her to write, and entreat her sister to interfere, that the
ill-advised match should not take place.

And who besides must put a little finger into the pie but the new
Countess of Castlewood? She wrote a majestic letter to Madam Esmond, and
stated, that having been placed by Providence at the head of the Esmond
family, it was her duty to communicate with her kinswoman and warn her
to break off this marriage. I believe the three women laid their heads
together previously; and, packet after packet, sent off their warnings
to the Virginian lady.

One raw April morning, as Corydon goes to pay his usual duty to Phillis,
he finds, not his charmer with her dear smile as usual ready to welcome
him, but Mrs. Lambert, with very red eyes, and the General as pale as
death. "Read this, George Warrington!" says he, as his wife's head drops
between her hands; and he puts a letter before me, of which I recognised
the handwriting. I can hear now the sobs of the good Aunt Lambert, and
to this day the noise of fire-irons stirring a fire in a room overhead
gives me a tremor. I heard such a noise that day in the girls' room
where the sisters were together. Poor, gentle child! Poor Theo!

"What can I do after this, George, my poor boy?" asks the General,
pacing the room with desperation in his face.

I did not quite read the whole of Madam Esmond's letter, for a kind of
sickness and faintness came over me; but I fear I could say some of it
now by heart. Its style was good, and its actual words temperate enough,
though they only implied that Mr. and Mrs. Lambert had inveigled me into
the marriage; that they knew such an union was unworthy of me; that (as
Madam E. understood) they had desired a similar union for her younger
son, which project, not unluckily for him, perhaps, was given up when
it was found that Mr. Henry Warrington was not the inheritor of the
Virginian property. If Mr. Lambert was a man of spirit and honour, as
he was represented to be, Madam Esmond scarcely supposed that, after her
representations, he would persist in desiring this match. She would not
lay