316 EPI30DK FROM AN UNPUBLISHED NOVEL. 



ever it is remembered; then, with her cheek reclining on mine, 

 poured forth her gratitude in tears that almost impeded speech. 

 " Bless you, my heart's love ! bless you ! Thank you ! Bless you !" 

 was all she could say. 



When her heart was somewhat eased, and her speech returned, 

 she blamed herself as the source of all my misfortunes : had I never 

 seen her, my virtues and talents could not have failed to make me 

 happy. This idea almost tortured her: she turned it a thousand 

 ways, and drew from it a thousand consequences, all favourable to 

 me, but for her fatal influence ; nor could she be at ease, or turn her 

 thoughts to a different subject, till she saw the distress it gave me. 

 Pardon me for too much insisting on circumstances that are only 

 interesting to myself; but they force themselves upon me. I cannot 

 wholly restrain my feelings when I speak of that angelic, that adorable 

 creature. 



As I was determined much rather to die than to live dishonoured, 

 the plan I had formed must be rigidly observed : I must never here- 

 after be suspected to be the son of the Earl of * * *. I could not 

 descend to daily falsehood, I must therefore renounce all connection 

 of country, kindred, and friendship. I must live mysteriously in a 

 foreign land, and be incessantly on the alert to obviate or frustrate 

 inquiry. I, who had long been taught to regard my race and name 

 as the proud distinctions of my life, must, now and for ever, anxiously 

 avoid them as sources of indelible disgrace. My future friends, 

 country., and means of subsistence, were all to seek. With the world 

 I was little acquainted, except the upper ranks of life, and these I 

 must fly from and avoid, with all the assiduity which the dread of 

 ignominy could inspire. I could have no foresight of what the pains 

 and degradation were to be to which this plan of life would subject 

 me ; but they were all before me, and must all be endured. Well ! 

 an old historian tells us that he saw the Duke of Exeter, a man who 

 had commanded armies, and was allied to kings, run barefoot before 

 the chariot of the Duke of Burgundy, serving him as a footman. 



Whatever my fate was to be, Lady Elizabeth was resolved to share 

 it; and, after making the best previous provisions in our power, we 

 hastened to Leith, and took passage on board a merchantman bound 

 for Venice. Here, after an expeditious passage, we were landed, 

 and hearing that hostilities between the Turks and Austrians were 

 begun, it was my determination to serve as a private among the Aus- 

 trians, that we might not only husband our little means to the utmost, 

 but that I might live secure from all possibility of being known. 

 Carefully concealing this intention, we made the best of our way 

 through the adjoining provinces, and arriving on the banks of the 

 Danube, where there was an Austrian encampment, I enrolled myself 

 as a dragoon in the corps of the Grand Duke. 



Three months after Lady Elizabeth gave me a son, accommodating 

 herself, with the most amiable resignation to such an extraordinary 

 change of circumstances without a single murmer, or once letting me 

 perceive they were so much as irksome ; her only fear was that they 

 should be too sensibly felt by me. The necessaries of life being secured, 



