s death, accepted from his fraternal hand a diamond bracelet;
the Lord Viscount St. Maurice, future chief of the house of Fitz-pompey,
had the honour not only of being his nephew, but his godson. Who could
account, then, for an action so perfectly unaccountable? It was quite
evident that his Grace had no intention of dying.

The guardian, however, that he did appoint was a Mr. Dacre, a Catholic
gentleman of ancient family and large fortune, who had been the
companion of his travels, and was his neighbour in his county. Mr. Dacre
had not been honoured with the acquaintance of Lord Fitz-pompey previous
to the decease of his noble friend; and after that event such an
acquaintance would probably not have been productive of agreeable
reminiscences; for from the moment of the opening of the fatal will
the name of Dacre was wormwood to the house of St. Maurice. Lord
Fitz-pompey, who, though the brother-in-law of a Whig magnate, was a
Tory, voted against the Catholics with renewed fervour.

Shortly after the death of his friend, Mr. Dacre married a beautiful and
noble lady of the house of Howard, who, after having presented him with
a daughter, fell ill, and became that common character, a confirmed
invalid. In the present day, and especially among women, one would
almost suppose that health was a state of unnatural existence. The
illness of his wife and the non-possession of parliamentary duties
rendered Mr. Dacre's visits to his town mansion rare, and the mansion in
time was let.

The young Duke, with the exception of an occasional visit to his uncle,
Lord Fitz-pompey, passed the early years of his life at Castle Dacre.
At seven years of age he was sent to a preparatory school at Richmond,
which was entirely devoted to the early culture of the nobility, and
where the principal, the Reverend Doctor Coronet, was so extremely
exclusive in his system that it was reported that he had once refused
the son of an Irish peer. Miss Coronet fed her imagination with the hope
of meeting her father's noble pupils in after-life, and in the meantime
read fashionable novels.

The moment that the young Duke was settled at Richmond, all the
intrigues of the Fitz-pompey family were directed to that quarter; and
as Mr. Dacre was by nature unsuspicious, and was even desirous that
his ward should cultivate the friendship of his only relatives, the St.
Maurice family had the gratification, as they thought, of completely
deceiving him. Lady Fitz-