his appeals to the sympathy and support of his
son, were such as to place the spirited young man in a most painful
predicament as regarded the family of his wife.

Unwilling to utter in her presence an injurious word concerning those
who, persecute her as they might, were still her nearest and dearest
by the indissoluble ties of nature, all he could do, in relief to his
overcharged feelings, was to rush forth into the Park, and curse the
day that he was born to behold all he loved in the world overwhelmed
in one common ruin.

On such occasions, while pretending to fix my attention on my float
upon the river, I often watched him from afar, till I was terrified by
the frantic vehemence of his gestures. There was almost reason to
fancy that the evil influences of the old Hall were extending their
power over the valley; and that this distracted young man was falling
into the eccentricities of Sir Laurence Altham.

After viewing with anxiety the wild deportment of poor Mary's husband,
I happened one day to pass along the lane I have described as skirting
the garden of the manor-house, on my way homewards to my farm; and on
plunging my eyes, as usual, into the verdant depths of the clipped
yew-walks, visible through the iron-palisades, was struck by the
contrast afforded to the scene I had just witnessed, not only by its
aristocratic tranquillity, but by the grave and subdued deportment of
Lady Robert Stanley, who was sauntering in one of the alleys,
accompanied by a favourite dog I had often seen following her sister
in former days, and looking the very picture of contented egotism.

I almost longed to call aloud to her, and confide all I knew and all
that I supposed. But what right had I to create alarms in her sister's
behalf? What right had I to incite her to disobedience against the
father on whom she and her husband were dependent? Better leave things
as they were--the common philosophy of selfish, timid people, afraid
of exposing their own heads to a portion of the storm their
interference may chance to bring down, while assisting the cause of
the weak against the strong.

I used often to go home and think of poor Mary till my heart ached.
That young and beautiful creature--that creature till lately so
beloved--to be thus cruelly abandoned, thus helpless, thus unhappy!
Perhaps not a soul sympathizing with her but myself--an obscure,
low-born, uninfluential man, of no more value as a protector than a
willow-wand