 cause. She conceived it to be no other than an artifice of her importunate wooer, to deceive the friends of her house, and to destroy the credit of Oswald, her faithful emissary (of whose confinement she was yet uninformed.) With scorn and indignation she reflected on the base attempt to sully her bright fame, and to persuade her friends, that, in defiance of the strict restraints of decent widowhood, and the respect which the memory of a noble husband claimed, she had, within the space of a few months, listened to the sollicitations of a new suitor, and consented to receive the hand of her oppressor. If the honour and reverence with which she reflected on Lord William had been somewhat impaired by her suspicions of his disloyalty, a new and more violent aversion to Lord Raymond now possessed her mind, and there still kept up an inflexible resolution never to acknowledge his pretensions to her inheritance, or to accept his love. In such dispositions she received the visits of this Lord with disdain, nor answered his tenders of affection, but by inveighing with all the bitterness of contempt and abhorrence against the mean deceit which he was

now practising. Raymond was abashed: he could not deny the accusation, but, with an ill-affected openness, declared that he had indeed assured his friends, that his wishes would be speedily crowned, as he would not suppose that she could ever continue thus unreasonably obdurate, and obstinately insensible to her own happiness.
Such were their interviews; and such the fixed aversion and proud disdain of the Countess, unsubdued by oppression, grief, and fear. Her tedious and melancholy hours were still wasted in alarms for her son, in anxious expectation of relief; of the arrival and vigorous interposition of her friends, and of the defeat and disgrace of her oppressor. In vain did she incessantly enquire, complain, condemn the slow procedure of those who should fly to assert her cause. No messenger of deliverance appeared, no voice of comfort did she receive: but on the morning of that day, which Raymond had presumptuously proclaimed his marriage-day, she still found herself the helpless and joyless prisoner of her false guest.

RAYMOND, now on the point of executing his bold purpose, trembled with anxiety, doubt, and sollicitude. Grey himself felt an inward agitation, although he laboured to encourage and confirm his Lord. The Monk alone stood stupidly insensible of the importance or of the baseness of the design. The attendants were disposed in their appointed stations; and joy and festivity seemed prepared. The apartments of the Countess alone were sad and solitary, where
