, sunk me to the lowest state of despondency; and the loss of my invaluable friend, Madame de St. Hillaire, put the finishing stroke to my sufferings.
This last calamity pressed hard indeed. In all my other distresses, this beloved friend had been, under heaven, my chief support, and had in some measure supplied

the place of all I had lost. I had still a friend to love, a friend who returned my warm affection. An early separation from my relations in England, had kept me a stranger to all of them, my aunt, Lady Meredith excepted, and she I had known for too short a period to feel for her that attachment which now fills my heart. I was then berest of my last, my only friend. Ah! can human misery present a more dismal picture to a heart of sensibility, than the melancholy consideration that none exists to animate the feelings of fervent affection.
Still, however, the only form in which alleviation touched my bosom, was the hopes of one day meeting with you; and revolving on the means to procure myself this consolation, in some measure dissipated my gloomy reflections. I knew not where, or to whom to apply for information; and was in this state of melancholy and uncertainty, when the account

of my Lord Aubrey's illness and request to see me arrived. Painful as was the idea of revisiting England, I hesitated not instantly to comply: and my repugnance was in a great measure subdued, by the hopes of gaining some information relative to you, tho' to chance alone I could owe the intelligence, Little likelihood indeed remained of success. A cruel peculiarity of circumstances deprived me of any light to guide my researches, and an open and avowed pursuit was precluded me. Yet the possibility soothed and supported my spirits; and it was not till I had been some weeks in London, that I found how totally impracticable it was to discover a private family whose names must ever be carefully guarded from my ears. My own maid, who had been with me from my early youth, I ventured to entrust with the enquiry, and two different channels of information occurred; by means of Lady

Linrose's servants, with one of whom she was acquainted; and if this failed, Mr. Benseley's relation might be applied to; but that gentleman I found was lately gone to Holland; and when I addressed myself by letter to him on the subject, he assured me in answer that the ladies names were as wholly unknown to him as was their abode; and Lady Linrose's
