o now you have the whole of
the matter. Gerald went the next day, and I fear me much lest he should
already be caught in some Jacobite trap. Write me thy advice on the
subject. Meanwhile, I have taken the precaution to have the trap-door
removed, and the aperture strongly boarded over.

But 'tis time for me to give over. I have been four days on this letter,
for the gout comes now to me oftener than it did, and I do not know when
I may again write to thee with my own hand; so I resolved I would e'en
empty my whole budget at once. Thy mother is well and blooming; she is,
at the present, abstractedly employed in a prodigious piece of tapestry
which old Nicholls informs me is the wonder of all the women.

Heaven bless thee, my child! Take care of thyself, and drink moderately.
It is hurtful, at thy age, to drink above a gallon or so at a sitting.
Heaven bless thee again, and when the weather gets warmer, thou must
come with thy kind looks, to make me feel at home again. At present the
country wears a cheerless face, and everything about us is harsh and
frosty, except the blunt, good-for-nothing heart of thine uncle, and
that, winter or summer, is always warm to thee.

WILLIAM DEVEREUX.

P. S. I thank thee heartily for the little spaniel of the new breed thou
gottest me from the Duchess of Marlborough. It has the prettiest red and
white, and the blackest eyes possible. But poor Ponto is as jealous as
a wife three years married, and I cannot bear the old hound to be vexed,
so I shall transfer the little creature, its rival, to thy mother.

This letter, tolerably characteristic of the blended simplicity,
penetration, and overflowing kindness of the writer, occasioned me
much anxious thought. There was no doubt in my mind but that Gerald
and Montreuil were engaged in some intrigue for the exiled family.
The disguised name which the former assumed, the state reasons which
D'Alvarez confessed that Barnard, or rather Gerald, had for concealment,
and which proved, at least, that some state plot in which Gerald was
engaged was known to the Spaniard, joined to those expressions of
Montreuil, which did all but own a design for the restoration of the
deposed line, and the power which I knew he possessed over Gerald, whose
mind, at once bold and facile, would love the adventure of the intrigue,
and yield to Montreuil's suggestions on its nature,--these combined
circumstances left me in no doubt upon a subject deeply inter