 soon resign his unjust pretensions, and thus dash all his own hopes of

rich rewards. Nay, possibly his conduct might hereafter meet a severe punishment. Thus he reasoned: and regarded her death as an event highly to be wished. An infant heir might easily be disposed of, and Raymond invested with his rights without controul or opposition. Every hour flattered his hopes with desperate accounts of Ela and her alarming situation. His art was exerted to the utmost, to divert the attention of Raymond from her distress, to alienate his mind from a woman who had presumptuously insuited his passion; and to dazzle him with the gay view of those fortunes which were now ready to crown his wishes. To inflame the pride of this lord, was his artifice and flattery principally directed. And, when he had warmed his imagination with prospects of riches and magnificence: when he had worked up his pliant mind to the due pitch of insolence and fierceness, he even dared to hint at the necessity of defeating all future claims; and with hardened calmness and indifference declared, that it must be his own care prudently and secretly to dispose of young William. Nor did Raymond, in his present temper, hear him with abhorrence or emotion. To such inconsistencies is the mind of man hurried by the tyranny of passions. He had just expressed the tenderest pity for the Countess; and now, when the determined villain had proposed to destroy her infant son, he started not at the horrid council, nor refused his consent.

BUT that pity which pride and interested cruelty denied her, Ela found now in her own sex. Her principal female attendant, though the creature of Raymond, and by him appointed for her service, had long beheld her sorrows and maternal fondness, with secret grief and sympathy. She had, herself, been wife and mother, had long felt and known their endearments and cares. Long had she wept in secret

for the afflictions of her injured lady, and now attended on her sick couch, with all the fond zeal and concern, which a woman's distress could excite in the gentle and feeling mind of woman. Her affection was now undissembled (for her Lord enjoined the most assiduous care, when the disorder had first seized the Countess:) and that affection was attended with success, proportioned to it's ardor and sincerity. Not time nor fatigue could abate her diligence and kind attention to a beloved mistress, who long lay insensible of her goodness, shrinking timorously from the hand that presented relief. At length, however, nature appeared still unconquered in this severe conflict, Reason began gradually
