secretary's urgent admonitions as to the life he must lead if he desired
to live at all. Convinced, at last, that wine and good cheer had not
blockaded out the enemy, and having to do, in Olivier Dalibard, with a
very different temper from the doctor's, he assented with a tolerable
grace to the trial of a strict regimen and to daily exercise in the open
air. Dalibard now became constantly with him; the increase of his
influence was as natural as it was apparent. Lucretia trembled; she
divined a danger in his power, now separate from her own, and which
threatened to be independent of it. She became abstracted and uneasy;
jealousy of the Provencal possessed her. She began to meditate schemes
for his downfall. At this time, Sir Miles received the following letter
from Mr. Fielden:--

SOUTHAMPTON, Aug. 20, 1801.

DEAR SIR MILES,--You will remember that I informed you when I arrived at
Southampton with my dear young charge; and Susan has twice written to her
sister, implying the request which she lacked the courage, seeing that
she is timid, expressly to urge, that Miss Clavering might again be
permitted to visit her. Miss Clavering has answered as might be expected
from the propinquity of the relationship; but she has perhaps the same
fears of offending you that actuate her sister. But now, since the
worthy clergyman who had undertaken my parochial duties has found the air
insalubrious, and prays me not to enforce the engagement by which we had
exchanged our several charges for the space of a calendar year, I am
reluctantly compelled to return home,--my dear wife, thank Heaven, being
already restored to health, which is an unspeakable mercy; and I am sure
I cannot be sufficiently grateful to Providence, which has not only
provided me with a liberal independence of more than 200 pounds a year,
but the best of wives and the most dutiful of children,--possessions that