 conceived a very unjust and unfavourable opinion of their behaviour. A variety of injurious rumours were the disagreeable consequence of their imprudence in lodging with a woman of whose character they were not particularly informed; and the unlucky intimacy which for a short time subsisted between them and Mrs. Weldon, owing to that abandoned woman's having

art in getting admitted into very respectable society abroad, must have confirmed her error.
Yes, Madam, said Lord Belmont; but when she was herself undeceived, then, in honour, in justice, she was bound to have removed the disgust she had implanted: but instead of pursuing this path, the whole of her conduct discovers the most despicable and ungenerous artifice. In a late letter dated from Holtenham Abbey, she tells me that my grandchildren are behaving with greater propriety than could have been expected; that the youngest had lately married the gentleman who had attended them from the Continent, a circumstance she observes that looked well; and that her sister resided with them in that county, where they lived with credit. As they were but lately arrived and little known, nobody there she says seemed acquainted with their late levity of conduct. This

decorum, whether real or assumed merely for the purpose of deceiving Linrose, was extremely alarming, she adds, as they had acquired a reputation which youth and beauty, when attended with art, seldom found it difficult to obtain, where a favourite point was at stake. Thus, by working forcibly on my apprehensions in regard to my grandson, and representing my granddaughters in this unfavourable point of view, she evidently aimed at prepossessing me so strongly against them, as to render me on my return neither particular in my enquiries nor in any way solicitous about them: while at the same time, should at length the real truth transpire, she preserved the salvo of having been herself deceived.
To these accusations Lady Aubrey could have added the artful visit she made at Hubert Hill, and the feigned civilities and expressions of friendship

by which she had endeavoured to gain our confidence and lull her son's suspicions, as affording her the means of separating us from Lord Belmont with greater facility and less danger of detection; but unwilling to exasperate where she was certain I would wish to reconcile, Lady Aubrey forbore acquainting him with this part of her behaviour.
She discovered however, in the course of this conversation, that Lord Linrose had partly hinted to him the approbation and admiration with which his mother had beheld us; but this having been followed by no particulars, and Lord Linrose having merely advanced that circumstance during the heat of their altercation as an
