eighteen. To her faithful eye were addressed those formidable quires which issued forth from Mervyn Hall, on the wings of the post, while Miss Mannering was a guest there. The perusal of a few extracts from these may be necessary to render our story intelligible.
"Alas! my dearest Matilda, what a tale is mine to tell! Misfortune from the cradle has set her seal upon your unhappy friend. That we should be severed for so slight a cause—an ungrammatical phrase in my Italian exercise, and three false notes in one of Paesiello's sonatas! But it is a part of my father's character—of whom it is impossible to say, whether I love, admire, or fear him the most. His success in life and in war—his habit of making every obstacle yield before the energy of his exertions, even where they seemed insurmountable,—all these have given a hasty and peremptory cast to his character, which can neither endure contradiction, nor make allowance for defici-
