A Victim to Gratitude. into his breast, and taught him to believe that the daughters of Britain were but too much honoured by his licentious addresses. When Maria had reached the age of fifteen, all a mother's feelings experienced the most agonizing trial. The small pox, and seemingly of a very fatal kind, attacked Maria. It threatened not only beauty, but life itself; while Mrs. Denbigh's circumstances were in so declining a state that, from the expence of this severe illness, her finances became, at length, almost totally exhausted. Scarce could she procure the necessaries of life, much less those comforts so requisite now, to the existence of her languishing daughter. All application to friends was in vain. She was obliged to suffer in obscure retirement, as the pretensions of the house of Lancaster now prevailed; and it was A Victim to Gratitude. known that her husband fell in supporting the claims of that of York. A young man of the name of de Rosenvault had formerly resided near them. A thousand little delicate attentions had escaped him, unheeded by the innocent Maria, and accepted of, as of no dangerous tendency, by the mother; for his person was plain, his manners no way prepossessing, and his situation in life, like their own, indigent. This exterior covered a cold, designing and cowardly heart. Cautious and reserved, it could not be perceived on which side he leaned, or which party he most favoured; but it since occurred, when too late, to these then unsuspecting females, that, when the House of Lancaster became successful, the fortunes of de Rosenvault increased. Antoine De Rosenvault was of a noble Norman family; and verified the old A Victim to Gratitude. Norman proverb, that every one born of Normandy, is a lawyer from his cradle. De Rosenvault did not belie his country. His plans were laid in the storehouse of his mind, long before he brought them to view. He undertook no action, till he had well weighed the profit which might accrue to him. He was skilled in all the learning of those rude times, and had made physic and surgery a part of his studies. Soon after the illness of Maria, he again became the neighbour of Mrs.. Denbigh. His style of living was much altered. His dress, his domestic establishment, evinced a manifest change. Ease and comfort succeeded to rigid parsimony; but he affected to weep over the fortunes of the house of York, and imputed the change of circumstances to the demise of a wealthy reation. A Victim to Gratitude. One afternoon, an important crisis in Maria's disorder appeared to be taking place. Every trace of beauty fled. She lay in a trance-like state, not lovely, but even disfiguring death itself. De Rosenvault intreated to see her; and, as he approached close to her, he perceived that, though her disorder was of the most virulent kind, it was not likely to leave any impression which might destroy her beauty, should she recover. He ordered her a nurse. He sent to Paris for a physician of the highest eminence, who had formerly attended. Queen Margaret. He watched over Maria. He spared no expence till he found her in a perfect state of convalescence. The mother adored him as the saviour of her child; and Maria looked up to him with the grateful affection of a sister. De Rosenvault now declared himself the lover; and Mrs. Denbigh, A Victim to Gratitude. who looked on him with a mother's regard, rejoiced in the prospect of ensuring a protector for her daughter, who, since her recovery, was more attractive and lovely than before. Her heart glowed with gratitude. She felt that sense of his kindness towards her, that she almost imagined, she loved him; and before she was seventeen, she became the wife of De Rosenvault. The first year of their marriage she saw herself the mother of a daughter, whose birth she bedewed with tears, and who was to her a perpetual source of tender anxiety; for before his daughter was born, the conduct of De Rosenvault was much altered. Gloom and discontent pervaded his features. Dark concealed schemes seemed fluctuating in his mind. He would stand gazing on Maria, not with fondness, but with scrutinizing precision; |