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130
DUTY AND INCLINATION.

mits of its towering hills, its cataracts, and steep perpendicular cliffs."

"The many ruined castles," added Dr. Lovesworth, "and once noble structures, mouldering into decay, variously dispersed about the country, must very much tend to augment the delight experienced by a traveller of taste."

"I think," remarked Mrs. De Brooke, "the country we inhabit is reputed to possess a very beautiful pile of antiquity, the second with respect to vastness in Great Britain."

"The observation is just," replied the Doctor: "I have had the pleasure of exploring Cherpihilly Castle, that truly stupendous fabric; no part of which is in any great state of preservation. The fox may howl beneath its once spacious and now broken roof, and may build its covert there, without being in the least danger of disturbance."

"These old romantic relics," said the General, "seem scarcely more ancient than are the genealogical descents of the inhabitants in some of the remote parts of the country."

"Such who style themselves Flemings," answered the Doctor; "they are a race proud and tenacious of their antiquity, and, in consequence, treat their neighbours with scorn and asperity,