'"You will act nobly by our dear William," said he; "I have no doubt of it; but above all, remember my poor Adelina. Camilla is happily married. Tell her I die blessing her, and her children! But Adelina—my unfortunate Adelina is herself but a child, and her husband is very young and thoughtless. Watch over her honour and her repose, for the sake of your father and that dear woman she so much resembles, your sainted mother."
'I was in the room, in an agony of sorrow. He called me to him. "My daughter," said he, in a feeble voice, "remember that the honour of your family—of your brothers—is in your hands—and remember it is sacred.—Endeavour to deserve the happiness of being sister to such brothers, and daughter to such a mother as yours was!"
'I was unable to answer. I could only kiss his convulsed hands; which I eagerly did, as if to tell him that I promised all he expected of me. My own heart, which then made the vow, now perpetually reproaches me with having kept it so ill!
'A few hours afterwards, my father died. My brother, unable to announce to me the melancholy tidings, took my hand in silence, and led me out of the house, which was now Lady Westhaven's. He had only a few days to stay in England, which he employed in paying the last mournful duties to his father; and then embarked again for America, leaving his affairs to be settled by my sister's husband, Lord Clancarryl, to whom he wrote to come over from Ireland; for my brother William was now stationed in the West Indies, where he obtained the command of a man of war; and my brother Westhaven knew, that to leave any material business to Trelawny, was to leave it to ignorance and imbecility.
'In my husband, I had neither a friend or a companion—I had not even a protector; for except when he was under the restraint of my brother's presence, he was hardly ever at home. Sometimes he was gone on tours to distant counties to attend races or hunts, to which he belonged; and sometimes to France, where he was embarked in gaming associations with Englishmen who lived only to disgrace their name. Left to pass my life as the wife of such a man as Trelawny, I felt my brother's departure as the deprivation of all I loved. But the arrival of my sister and her husband relieved me. I had not seen them for some years; and was delighted to meet my sister happy with a man so worthy and respectable as Lord Clancarryl.
'He took possession on behalf of my brother of the estate my aunt was now obliged to resign; and as my sister was impatient to return to Ireland, where she had left her children, they pressed me extremely to go thither with them. Trelawny was gone out on one of his rambles; but I wrote to him and obtained his consent—indeed he long since ceased to trouble himself about me.
'I attended my sister therefore to Lough Carryl; on the beautiful banks of which her Lord had built an house, which possessing as much magnificence as was proper to their rank, was yet contrived with an attention to all the comforts of domestic retirement. Here Lady Clancarryl chose to reside the whole year; and my Lord never left it but to attend the business of Parliament at Dublin.
'His tender attention to his wife; his ardent, yet regulated fondness for his children; the peace and order which reigned in his house; the delightful and easy society he sometimes collected in it, and the chearful confidence we enjoyed in quiet family parties when without company; made me feel with bitterness and regret the difference between my sister's lot and mine. Her husband made it the whole business of his life to fulfill every duty of his rank, mine seemed only solicitous to degrade himself below his. One was improving his fortune by well regulated œconomy; the other dissipating his among gamesters and pick-pockets. The conversation of Lord Clancarryl was sensible, refined, and improving; Trelawny's consisted either in tiresome details of adventures among jockies, pedigrees of horses, or scandalous and silly anecdotes about persons of whom nobody wished to hear; or he sunk into sullen silence, yawned, and shewed how very little relish he had for any other discourse.
'When I married him, I knew not to what I had condemned myself. As his character gradually discovered itself, my reason also encreased; and now, when I had an opportunity of comparing him to such a man as Lord Clancarryl, I felt all the horrors of my destiny! and beheld, with a dread from which my feeble heart recoiled, a long, long prospect of life before me—without attachment, without friendship, without love.
'I remained two months in Ireland; and heard nothing of Trelawny, 'till a match having been made on the Curragh of Kildare, on which he had a large bet depending, he came over to be present at it; and I heard with regret that I was to return with him. While he remained in Ireland, his disgusting manners, and continual intoxication, extremely displeased Lord Clancarryl; and I lived in perpetual uneasiness. A few days before we were to embark for England, George Fitz-Edward, his Lordship's younger brother, came from the north of Ireland, where he had been with his regiment, to Lough Carryl; but it was only a passing visit to his family—he was going to England, and we were to sail in the same pacquet.'