CHAPTER VII.
LETTER CONTINUED.
-- ------Must I then ravel out My weaved-up follies ?-------- SHAKSPEARE.
"I resume my pen, Harry, to mention, without attempting to describe my surprise, that Francis, compelled by circumstances, made me the confidant of his love-intrigue.

My grave cousin in love, and very much in the mind of approaching the perilous verge of clandestine marriage--he who used every now and then, not much to the improvement of our cordial regard, to lecture me upon filial duty, just upon the point of slipping the bridle himself! I could not for my life tell whether surprise, or a feeling of mischievous satisfaction, was predominant.

I tried to talk to him as he used to talk to me; but I had not the gift of persuasion, or he the power of understanding the words of wisdom.

He insisted our situation was different--that his unhappy birth, as he termed it, freed him at least from dependence on his father's absolute will--that he had, by bequest from some relative of his mother, a moderate competence, which Miss Mowbray had consented to share with him; in fine, that he desired not my counsel but my assistance.

A moment's consideration convinced me, that I should be unkind, not to him only, but to myself, unless I gave him all the backing I could in this his most dutiful scheme.