of Lord Evandale; and, even if freed from the burthen of obligation to the latter, it would still have been inconsistent with his generosity of disposition to disturb their arrangements, by attempting the assertion of a claim, prescribed by absence and barred by a thousand circumstances of difficulty. Why then did he seek the cottage which their broken fortunes had now rendered the retreat of Lady Margaret Bellenden and her grand-daughter? He yielded, we are under the necessity of acknowledging, to the impulse of an inconsistent wish, which many might have felt in his situation.
Accident apprised him, while travelling towards his native district, that the ladies, near whose mansion he must necessarily pass, were absent, and, learning that Cuddie and his wife acted as their principal domestics, he could not resist pausing at their cottage, to learn, if possible, the real progress which Lord Evandale had made in the affections of Miss Bellenden—alas!
