, never will I be prevailed with to grant an independent consent, though my grandfather's behaviour towards me may in your Lordship's opinion see us free from these

obligations of duty which otherwise he must undoubtedly claim: yet surely you cannot be either ignorant of or insensible to the powerful motives that restrain me. How many painful minutes have the disobedience of his children occasioned to Lord Belmont. Disappointed in his sanguine expectations of their happiness, distracted with the conduct of one son and displeased, however unjustly, with the connection formed by the other, he now finds himself deprived for ever of both, and seeks in his grandson the completion of those expectations which have hitherto proved only a source of vexation, uneasiness, and mortification to his bosom. Oh! my Lord! ought we to render this unfortunate old man still more miserable? ought we to blast his last hopes, and teach him that while he had the generosity to place his happiness in the prosperity of his children, however blindly he judged of the means, disappointment

and ingratitude were all the return they afforded him.
Ah! Miss Seymour! in what a light you place Lord Belmont's conduct! But pray listen, I entreat you, with equal patience and attention, to a fair and candid examination of the matter from me. Let not a romantic generosity warp your judgment and banish your compassion where it ought more naturally to exert itself. Great, I allow, would be the weight of your arguments, were Lord Belmont's misery the natural consequence of our happiness; but this is so far from being the real case, that the most certain comfort and most assured satisfaction must flow from his being a witness of our mutual felicity, where no one obstacle, but those of caprice and prepossession are alledged. How is it to be reasonably supposed they will rest on his mind, when all hope of another alliance, which at present supports his inflexibility, is wholly

and for ever supprest. No; be assured my grandfather's eyes will then be opened to his error; with the most sincere regret he will abjure his own, and pardon ours, and taking my Hermione to his bosom, will experience in her duty and affection, and in the enjoyment he must derive from my unspeakable felicity, all the comfort, happiness, and delight, of which, by a false generosity and ill judged adherence to the rigors of duty, you would wholly deprive him in his old days.
Ah! my Lord! cried I, softened at this soothing representation, and terrified at my own weakness, I have listened too
