198 BEGRETS. 



revert, sometimes in a sudden, strange, 

 and unaccountable manner, to my former 

 state, and to the irremediable losses I felt 

 I had sustained the first and greatest 

 of which was domestic happiness ; and I 

 ruminated when alone on the compara- 

 tive hardness of my fate, and silently 

 lamented the apparent waste of the best 

 years of my life. My two children were 

 well cared for by my elder sister after the 

 loss of their mother, and I had since 

 then placed each, a boy and girl, at an 

 excellent school in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of London. But I had no 

 establishment of my own ; and it is ad- 

 mitted as a general rule that man must 

 be discontented with his lot. I was not 

 an exception to it. My dissatisfaction 

 was afterwards heightened by an incident 

 by no means peculiar to men of my age 

 in any position desirous of partaking of 

 the real felicities of life. 



