manner, and to admire features which, though regular, had a want of
light and animation, which diminished their beauty even more than the
thinness and compression of the lips, and the very pale gray of the
eyes.

The family were about to return to England, where the marriage was to
take place, when Lady Emily was attacked with a sudden illness, which
her weakened frame was unable to resist, and in a very few days she
died, leaving the little Adeline, about eight months old, to
accompany her father and sister on their melancholy journey
homewards. This loss made a great change in the views of Eleanor,
who, as she considered the cares and annoyances which would fall on
her father, when left to bear the whole burthen of the management of
the children and household, felt it was her duty to give up her own
prospects of happiness, and to remain at home. How could she leave
the tender little ones to the care of servants--trust her sisters to
a governess, and make her brothers' home yet more dreary? She knew
her father to be strong in sense and firm in judgment, but indolent,
indulgent, and inattentive to details, and she could not bear to
leave him to be harassed by the petty cares of a numerous family,
especially when broken in spirits and weighed down with sorrow. She
thought her duty was plain, and, accordingly, she wrote to Mr.
Hawkesworth, to beg him to allow her to withdraw her promise.

Her brother Henry was the only person who knew what she had done, and
he alone perceived something of tremulousness about her in the midst
of the even cheerfulness with which she had from the first supported
her father's spirits. Mr. Mohun, however, did not long remain in
ignorance, for Frank Hawkesworth himself arrived at Beechcroft to
plead his cause with Eleanor. He knew her value too well to give her