"I ought not to be weeping here," at length she said, "I ought to let you leave me, but I have not the courage, I cannot bear to lose your friendship,—your affection, my Ellinor! Can you love me? Have you loved me, knowing all the while, as every one must? To-day—this very hour, since you left me, I learned:—no I cannot tell you! Look on that page, Ellinor, you will see why you find me thus. I am the most wretched, wretched creature!"—here again she burst into an agony of uncontrollable grief.

Who can describe the feelings of the Lady Anne—alone, in her chamber, looking up at the portrait of her mother, upon which she had so often gazed with delight and reverence! "Is it possible?" said she to herself, "can this be she, of whom I have read such dreadful things? Have all my young and happy days been but a dream, from which I wake at last? Is not this dreadful certainty still as a hideous dream to me?"

She had another cause of bitter grief. She loved the young and noble-minded Lord Russell, the Earl of Bedford's eldest son; and she had heard him vow affection and faithfulness to her. She now perceived at once the reasons why the Earl of Bedford had objected to their marriage: she almost wondered within herself that the Lord Russel should have chosen her; and though she loved him more for avowing his attachment, though her heart pleaded warmly for him, she determined to renounce his plighted love. "It must be done," she said, "and better now;—delay will but bring weakness. Now I can write—I feel that I have strength." And the Lady Anne wrote, and folded with a trembling hand the letter which should give up her life's happiness; and fearing her resolution might not hold, she despatched it by a messenger, as the Lord Russel was then in the neighbourhood; and returned mournfully to her own chamber. She opened an old volume which lay upon her toilette—a volume to which she turned in time of trouble, to seek that peace which the world cannot give.

Lady Ellinor soon aroused her by the tidings that a messenger had arrived with a letter from her father, and she descended in search of him.

"Oh, why is this? why am I here?" exclaimed the Lady Anne, as trembling and almost sinking to the ground—her face alternately pale and covered with crimson blushes, she found herself alone with the Lord Russell. "You have received my letter, might not this trial have been spared? my cup was already sufficiently bitter—but I had drunk it. No!" she continued gently withdrawing her hand which he had taken, "Do not make me despise myself—the voice of duty separates us. Farewell! I seek a messenger from my father." "I am the messenger you seek," replied he, "I have seen the Lord Somerset, and bring this letter to his daughter."

The letter from the Earl of Somerset informed his daughter that he had seen the Earl of Bedford, and had obviated all obstacle to her union with the Lord Russell; that he was going himself to travel in foreign parts; and that he wished her to be married during a visit to the Earl and Countess of Bedford, whose invitation he had accepted for her.

"Does not your father say, that in this marriage his happiness is at stake?" said the Lord Russell, gently pressing her hand. The Lady Anne hung down her head, and wept in silence. "Are you still silent, my dearest?" continued he, "then will I summon another advocate to plead for me."

He quitted the apartment for a moment, but soon returned with the Countess of Bedford, who had accompanied him to claim her future daughter-in-law. The Lady Anne had made many resolutions, but they yielded before the sweet and eloquent entreaties that urged her to do what, in fact, she was all too willing to consent to.

They were married, the Lord Russell and the Lady Anne Carr; and they lived long and happily together. It was always thought that the Lord Russell had loved not only well, but wisely; for the Lady Anne was ever a faithful wife, and a loving, tender mother. It was not until some years after her marriage, that the Lady Russell discovered how the consent of the earl of Bedford had been obtained. Till then, she knew not that this consent had been withheld, until the Earl of Somerset should give his daughter a large sum as her marriage portion:—the Earl of Bedford calculating upon the difficulty, nay almost impossibility, of his ever raising this sum.

But he had not calculated upon the devotion of the wretched father's love to his fair and innocent child: and he was astounded when his terms were complied with, and the money paid at once into his hands. He could no longer withhold his consent; nor could he refuse some admiration of this proof of a father's love for his child. The Lord Somerset had, in fact, sold his whole possessions, and reduced himself to an estate not far removed from beggary, to give his daughter the husband of her choice.

It was the Lady Anne Carr, of whom Vandyke painted an exquisite and well-known portrait, when Countess of Bedford. She was the mother of William Lord Russell; and died heart-broken in her old age, when she heard of the execution of her noble and first-born son.

This is, perhaps, one of Mr. Tayler's most successful pieces; it has more breadth (if we may use such a term) than he is wont to employ, the absence of which from his writing, we have more than once had occasion to regret.

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 344 (Supplementary Issue)

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