in her turn: and when I explained to him my reasons for the anxious enquiries I made, which I thought the only means likely to interest him for me, he said that he was "vraiment au desespoir" at the little embarras into which I had fallen: that la belle demoiselle might be my sister or might be his; that he had not the least hope of being of service to me in unravelling the mystery, for he had destroyed all his mother's papers in pursuance of her dying directions some years before, and did not believe the slightest trace remained of any connection with an English lady, or an English family. I enquired where his mother lived in the years 1770 and 1771, which was about the time of your birth, and where in the year 1772, the time of your reception in the convent; he replied that she was then sometimes at Paris, where she was believed to have an arrangement with Count W—, a German nobleman, sometimes at Pezenas and sometimes at Hieres. From all this I could gather nothing to my purpose; and Monsieur de Pellatier soon quitting his house in the neighbourhood of Bayonne to go to Paris, I returned thither also, infinitely more unhappy than before my research. All I have related, Celestina, is so little convincing when it is put together, that perhaps I ought not to lay any stress upon it, when to such slight and unsatisfactory ground of conjecture, is opposed the character and the principles of my mother: yet shall I tell you truly, that the energy with which she pressed me with her last words to marry Miss Fitz-Hayman; the displeasure she always shewed at my expressing any partiality towards you; her grief at the death of Mr. Everard, which it was easy to see she never recovered; some words which, though I could not clearly understand them, escaped her lips almost with her last sigh, and in which the name of Celestina seemed united with some ardent prayer, or some earnest injunction, while, in her cold convulsed hand, she pressed mine to her trembling lips; oh! Celestina! those sounds I have since interpreted into a confession of this fatal secret. Still, still inarticulate as they were, they vibrate on my heart: and now, united with the story of Lady Castlenorth, and the circumstances I have gathered of your being born of English parents—all, all unite to render me wretched. Yet there is not the least likeness between you and my mother; there is not the remotest resemblance between you and Mr. Everard, who had remarkably strong features and very