Sir Jaspar had listened to this narrative with trembling interest, and a species of emotion that was indefinable; his head bent forward, and his mouth nearly as wide open, from the fear of losing a word, as his eyes, from eagerness not to lose a look: but, when it was finished, he exclaimed, in a sort of transport, ‘Is this all? Joy, then, to great C?sar! Why ’tis nothing! My little fairies are all skipping in ecstacy; while the wickeder imps are making faces and wry mouths, not to see mischief enough in the wind to afford them a supper! This a marriage? Why you are free as air!

‘The little birds that fly,

With careless ease, from tree to tree,’

are not more at liberty. Ah! fair enslaver! were I as unshackled!’—

The smiles that, momentarily, broke their way through the tears and sadness of Juliet shewed how much this declaration was in unison with her wishes; but, exhausted by relating a history so deeply affecting to her, she could enter into no discussion; and remained ceaselessly weeping, till the Baronet, with an expression of surprize, asked whether the meeting that would now ensue with her own family, could offer her no consolation?

Rousing, then, from her sorrows, to a grateful though forced exertion, ‘Oh yes!’ she cried, ‘yes! Your generous goodness has given me new existence! But horrour and distress have pursued me with such accumulating severity, that the shock is still nearly overpowering. Yet,—let me not diminish the satisfaction of your beneficence. I am going now to be happy!—How big a word!—how new to my feelings!—A sister!—a brother!—Have I, indeed, such relations?’ smiling even brightly through her tears. ‘And will Lady Aurora,—the sweetest of human beings!—condescend to acknowledge me? Will the amiable Lord Melbury deign to support, to protect me? Oh Sir Jaspar, how have you brought all this to bear? Where are these dearest persons? And when, and by what means, am I to be blest with their sight, and honoured with their sanction to my claim of consanguinity?’

Sir Jaspar begged her to compose her spirits, promising to satisfy her when she should become more calm. But, her thoughts having once turned into this channel, all her tenderest affections gushed forth to oppose their being diverted into any other; and the sound, the soul-penetrating sound of sister!—of brother! once allowed utterance, vibrated through her frame with a thousand soft emotions, now first welcomed without check to her heart.

Urgently, therefore, she desired an explanation of the manner in which this commission had been given; of the tone of voice in which she had been named; and of the time and place destined for the precious meeting.

Sir Jaspar, though enchanted to see her revived, and enraptured to give ear to her thanks, and to suck in her praises, was palpably embarrassed how to answer her enquiries; which he suffered her to continue so long without interruption or reply, that, her eagerness giving way to anxiety, she solemnly required to know, whether it were by accident, or through his own information, that Lord Melbury and Lady Aurora had been made acquainted with her rights, or, more properly, with her hopes and her fears in regard to their kindness and support.

Still no answer was returned, but smiling looks, and encouraging assurances.

The most alarming doubts now disturbed the just opening views of Juliet ‘Ah! Sir Jaspar!’ she cried, ‘why this procrastination? Practise no deception, I conjure you!—Alas, you make me fear that you have acted commission?’—

He protested, upon his honour, that that was not the case; yet asked why she had settled that his commission came from Lady Aurora, or Lord Melbury?

‘Good Heaven!’—exclaimed Juliet, astonished and affrighted.

He had only, he said, affirmed, that his commission was to take her to those noble personages; not that it had been from themselves that it had emanated.

Again every feature of Juliet seemed changed by disappointment; and the accent of reproach was mingled with that of grief, as she pronounced, ‘Oh Sir Jaspar! can you, then, have played with my happiness? have trifled with my hopes?’—

‘Not to be master of the whole planetary system,’ he cried, ‘with Venus, in her choicest wiles, at its head! I have honourably had my commission; but it has been for, not from your honourable relations. Those little invisible, but active beings, who have taken my conscience in charge, have spurred and goaded me on to this deed, ever since I saw your distress at the fair Gallic needle-monger’s. Night and day have they pinched me and jirked me, to seek you, to find you, and to rescue you from that brawny caitiff.’—

‘Alas! to what purpose? If I have no asylum, what is my security?—’

‘If I have erred, my beauteous fugitive,’ said Sir Jaspar, archly, ‘I must order the horses to turn about! We shall still, probably, be in time to accompany the happy captive to his cell.’

Juliet involuntarily screamed, but besought, at least, to know how she had been traced; and what had induced the other pursuit; or caused the seizure, which she had so unexpectedly witnessed, of her persecutor?

He answered, that, restless to fatho............