his features and flashed from his dark eyes-that was a face of delight I never can forget; but I could not stay: I hastened to be the first to tell Berenice of her father's safety, and of the proof which all the world had had of the falsehood of the charge against him. I ran up to the drawing-room, where she was alone. She fainted in

my arms.

And now you think, that when she came to herself, there was an end of all my fears, all my suspense —you think that her love, her gratitude overcame the objection, whatever it may be, which has hitherto been called invincible-alas! you are mistaken.

I was obliged to resign Berenice to the care of her attendants. A short time afterwards, I received from her father the following note.

"My obligations to you are great, so is my affection for you; but the happiness of my child, as well as your happiness, is at stake.

"I dare not trust my gratitude-my daughter and you must never meet again, or must meet to part no

more.

"I cannot yet decide: if I shall be satisfied that the obstacle do not exist, she shall be yours; if it do exist, we sail the first of next month for America, and you, Mr. Harrington, will not be the only, or perhaps the most, unhappy person of the three.

A. MONTENERO,"

CHAPTER XVI.

THE Sunday after the riots, I happened to see Mrs. Coates, as we were coming out of St. George's church. She was not in full-blown, happy importance, as formerly: she looked ill and melancholy; or, as one of her city neighbours, who was following her out of church, expressed it, quite "crest-fallen." I heard some whispering that “ things were going wrong at home with the Coates's-that the world was going down hill with the alderman.”

But a lady, who was quite a stranger, though she did me the honour to speak to me, explained that it was "no such thing-worth a plum still, if he be worth a farthing. "Tis only that she was greatly put out of her way last week, and frightened, till well nigh beside herself, by them rioters that came and set fire to one of the Coates's, Mr. Peter's, warehouse. Now, though poor Mrs. Coates, you'd think, is so plump and stout to look at, she is as nervous!you've no notion, sir!—shakes like an aspen leaf, if she but takes a cup of green tea so I prescribe bohea. But there she's curtsying, and nodding, and kissing hands to you, sir, see!—and can tell you, no doubt, all about herself."

Mrs. Coates's deplorably placid countenance, tremulous muscles, and lamentable voice and manner, confirmed to me the truth of the assertion that she had been frightened nearly out of her senses.

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Why now, sir, after all," said she, "I begin to find what fools we were, when we made such a piece of work one election year, and said that no soldiers should come into the town, 'cause we were free

Britons. Why, Lord 'a mercy! 'tis a great deal better maxim to sleep safe in our beds than to be free Britons and burnt to death*.”

Persons of higher pretensions to understanding and courage than poor Mrs. Coates seemed at this time ready to adopt her maxim; and patriots feared that it might become the national sentiment.

No sooner were order and tranquillity perfectly reestablished in the city, than the public in general, and party politicians in particular, were intent upon the trials of the rioters, and more upon the question whether the military had suppressed the riots constitutionally or unconstitutionally. It was a question to be warmly debated in parliament; and this, after the manner in which great public and little private interests, in the chain of human events, are continually linked together, proved of important consequence to me and my love affairs.

A call of the house brought my father to town, contrary to his will, and consequently in ill-humour. This ill-humour was increased by the perplexing situation in which he found himself, with his passions on one side of the question and his principles on the other: hating the papists, and loving the ministry. In his secret soul, my father cried with the rioters, "No papists!-no French !-no Jews!-no wooden shoes!" but a cry against government was abhorrent to his very nature. My conduct, with regard to the riot at Mr. Montenero's, and towards the rioters, by whom he had been falsely accused, my father heard spoken of with approbation in the political circles which he most reverenced; and he could not but be pleased, he confessed, to hear that his son had so properly conducted himself: but still it was all in de

* Vide Mrs. Piozzi's Letters.

fence of the Jews, and of the father of that Jewess whose very name was intolerable to his ear.

So, Harrington, my boy, you've gained great credit, I find, by your conduct last Wednesday night. Very lucky, too, for your mother's friend, lady de Brantefield, that you were where you were. But after all, sir, what the devil business had you there?-and again on Thursday morning!-I acknowledge that was a good hit you made, about the gun-but I wish it had been in the defence of some good Christian: what business has a Jew with a gun at all?-Government knows best, to be sure; but I split against them once before, three-and-twenty years ago, on the naturalization bill. What is this cry which the people set up? No Jews!-no wooden shoes!'-ha! ha! ha!—the dogs!--but they carried it too far, the rascals!--When it comes to throwing stones at gentlemen's carriages, and pulling down gentlemen's and noblemen's dwelling-houses, it's a mob and a riot, and the rioters deserve certainly to be hanged-and I'm heartily glad my son has come forward, Mrs. Harrington, and has taken a decided and distinguished part in bringing the offenders to justice. But, Harrington, pray tell me now, young gentleman, about that Jewess."

Before I opened my lips, something in the turn of my physiognomy enraged my father to such a degree that all the blood in his body came into his face, and, starting up, he cried, "Don't answer me, sir-I ask no questions-I don't want to hear any thing about the matter! Only if-if, sir-if-that's all I have to say-if-by Jupiter Ammon-sir, I won't hear a word-a -a syllable! You only wish to explain-I won't have any explanation-I have business enough on my hands, without listening to a madman's nonsense!”

My father began to open his morning's packet of letters and newspapers. One letter, which had been directed to his house in the country, and which had followed him to town, seemed to alarm him terribly. He put the letter into my mother's hand, cursed all the post-masters in England, who were none of them to blame for its not reaching him sooner, called for his hat and cane, said he must go instantly to the city, but "feared all was too late, and that we were undone." With this comfortable assurance he left us. The letter was from a broker in Lombard-street, who did business for my father, and who wrote to let him know that, "in consequence of the destruction of a great brewery in the late riots, several mercantile houses had been injured. Alderman Coates had died suddenly of an apoplexy, it was said: his house had closed on Saturday; and it was feared that Baldwin's bank would not stand the run made on it."

Now in Baldwin's bank, as my mother informed me, my father had eight days before lodged £30,000, the purchase money of that estate which he had been obliged to sell to pay for his three elections. This sum was, in fact, every shilling of it due to creditors, who had become clamorous; and "if this be gone," said my mother, we are lost indeed!-this house must go, and the carriages, and every thing; the Essex estate is all we shall have left, and live there as we can-very ill it must be, to us who have been used to affluence and luxury. Your father, who expects his table, and every individual article of his establishment, to be in the first style, as if by magic, without ever reflecting on the means, but just inviting people, and leaving it to me to entertain them properly-oh! I know how bitterly he would feel even retrenchment!-and this would be ruin; and