 all this family.
Talk not of gratitude, I entreat, cried he. If through the interest of my family I have been so fortunate as to render a slight service to Miss Seymour, damp not the pleasure it gives me by attaching to it an idea of obligation it so little merits; or if (for you will find I am willing to make the very most of the favour) if I can flatter myself with having enjoyed the happiness either of obliging Miss Seymour, or on her account of having gratified your wishes, will you give me leave to point out to you how you may cancel the obligation at once and make me most sincerely regard myself as your debtor.
If I have the power, Mr. Roatsley, returned

Mr. Howard smiling, be assured the will is not wanting.
The power of granting my request, I must conclude you are in full possession of, since it is by permission of Miss Seymour I venture to make it; and allow me to premise, that without the sanction of her approbation and consent I certainly should not have had the presumption (however anxious) to demand particulars into which I have no title but from her indulgence and your's to penetrate. Will you however favour me so far as to inform me of such circumstances of her present and past situation, as may enable me to judge in what manner I may perhaps one day have it in my power really and essentially to serve.
If your present enquiry reaches only to pecuniary matters, Sir, returned Mr. Howard, I have the pleasure of assuring you that in regard to that circumstance, Miss Seymour's situation has never been

so extremely uncomfortable as I have reason to believe was suggested to you. My wife's fortune, and her sister's, amounted originally to twenty four thousand pounds; but the sudden death of their guardian, who had the sole management of this money, and who has left his affairs in the most embarrassed and involved situation, in all human probability will reduce the sum to one tenth of its value. This certainly is a reverse to be lamented; but the mind that is wholly untinctured with avarice, seldom allows such mortifications to inflict a pang either deep or of long continuance, and I am certain it has never proved the source of more than a transient regret to either. Alas! human life is replete with distresses and anxieties which reach nearer to the heart, which pierce it in its tenderest feelings, and wound it where it is most open to the attack; and disappointments of this nature, against which both my wife and
