e. But, in fact,
the country gentry of England have been long a deteriorated, and will
soon be an extinct species. The last perfect specimens within my
knowledge were the late possessors of Devereux Hall.

I have told you that Mr Devereux and his sister were far advanced in
life when their parents paid the debt of nature. Both were single, also,
as they continued to the last hour of their inseparable companionship;
for, though "the young Squire" had been early wedded to the choice of
his heart, and the selected of his parents--a fair and gentle being, who
was transplanted to her husband's home, and taken to the bosom of his
family, only to win for herself its tender affection and undying
remembrance--before the expiration of the nuptial year, the young wife
and her new-born son slept in the vault of the Devereuxs, and her
sorrowing husband (in this instance only resisting the gently implied
wishes of his parents) could never be prevailed on to contract a second
marriage.

His sister--the faithful sharer of all his joys and sorrows--was to him
as a consoling angel in the season of his sore calamity. Her mind (the
stronger of the two) was the support of his in its great trial, and her
heart, tender as ever beat in a woman's breast, was tuned to finer
sympathy with his, by having also undergone the touchstone of
affliction.

Eleanor Devereux had been wooed and won with the parental sanction--had
loved tenderly--had trusted nobly--would have wedded splendidly in the
world's acceptation. But before the irrevocable knot was tied, the
suspicions of her anxious father were awakened by certain unguarded
expressions of his future son-in-law, which led to serious investigation
on the part of Mr Devereux, and a reluctant, but unqualified avowal, of
more than scepticism on the most sacred subject, from him to whom the
truly Christian parent was about to commit the earthly welfare of his
beloved child, and perhaps her eternal interests. Mr Devereux shrank not
for a moment from the fulfilment of the duty imposed on him by this
painful discovery. But when he imparted it to his darling, and required
from her the sacrifice of those innocent hopes which had grown up under
the fullest sanction of parental encouragement, the utmost exertions of
manly fortitude, based on Christian principle, alone enabled him to
persevere in his painful duty. There was no passionate remonstrance, no
resisting wilfulness, no ebullition of violent feeling,