; but as this mode she had chosen; chanced to be no specified condition in the terms, offered to her, they did not think they were bound to pay her for it; and while she was too fearful and bashful to solicit the dean, too proud (forlorn as she was) to supplicate his son, they both concluded she "wanted for nothing;" for to be poor, and too delicate to complain, they deemed incompatible.
To heighten the sense of her degraded, friendless situation, she knew that Henry had not been unmindful of his promise to her, but that he had applied to his cousin in her and his child's behalf; for he had acquainted her that William's

answer was—"all obligations on his part were now undertaken by his father; for Hannah having chosen (in a fit of malignity upon his marriage) to apprise the dean of their former intercourse, such conduct had for ever cancelled all attention due from him to her, or to her child, beyond what its bare maintenance exacted."
In vain had Henry explained to him the predicament in which poor Hannah was involved before she consented to reveal her secret to his father; William was happy in an excuse to rid himself of a burthen, and he seemed to believe, what he wished were true—that she had forfeited all claim to his farther notice.
Henry informed Hannah in as gentle terms as possible of this unkind reception of his efforts in her favour, for she excited his deepest compassion.—Perhaps our own misfortunes are the cause of our pity for others, even more than their ills; and Henry's present sorrows had softened his heart to peculiar sympathy in woe. He had unhappily found, that the ardour which had hurried him to vindicate the reputation of Rebecca, was likely to deprive

him of the blessing of her ever becoming his wife. For the dean, chagrined that his son was at length proved an offender instead of his nephew, submitted to the temptation of punishing the latter, while he forgave the former. He sent for Henry, and having coldly congratulated him on his and Rebecca's innocence, represented to him the impropriety of marrying the daughter of a poor curate, and laid his commands on him, "never to harbour such an intention more." Henry found this restriction so severe that he would not promise obedience; but on his next attempt to visit Rebecca, he met a positive repulse from her father, who signified to him, "that the dean had forbid him to permit their farther acquaintance;" and the curate declared—"that, for
