Enter Colonel MEDWAY.

George! What now, George?

Col. Med. My lord, I have been endeavouring to assume such a frame of mind, as will, I hope, enable me to go through with the task in which I have engaged. I am ready now to wait on Mrs. Knightly.

Lord Med. I did not expect you back so soon.

Col. Med. I thought, my lord, the sooner I returned, it would be the more agreeable to you, as well as respectful to the lady.

Lord Med. Can you feel nothing more than respect for that lady, son?

Col. Med. My lord, you know I cannot. ` My heart is given to another. I must be unhappy, yet I hope I shall not make Mrs. Knightly so.

So.

Lord Med. Poor woman !—she is already too much

Col. Med. Have you had any conversation with her, my lord?

Lord Med. I have.

-You cannot be her husband.

Col. Med. I am willing, my lord, if the lady will accept of me.

Lord Med. You know not what you say.

George, George 1-you will start when I tell you

strange discovery I have made.

Col. Med. What is it, my lord?

-Oh,

the

Lord Med. Mrs. Knightly—she to whom I would

have joined you—I find is

Col. Med. What?

Lord Med. Oh, Medway !-my own daughter. Col. Med. You amaze me, my lord-how did you discover it?

Lord Med. When I went so solicit for you, I found her in her closet, under great agitation, on account of the letter you had written to her sister.-I pleaded for you, but found her averse and cold.- -In a little pause of discourse, I happened to cast my eyes on the picture of a lady, which hung just before me, and was struck with the resemblance of a beauty, whom, in my early days, I loved, and cruelly betrayed.

Col. Med. I remember, my lord, to have heard you speak of some such thing-a lady, who, when you made your first campaign in Portugal, gave you her love.

Lord Med. The same-I thought the injured countenance seemed to frown upon me. Surprized at the sight, I hastily demanded whose the picture was, and was told by Mrs. Knightly 'twas her mother's. Col. Med. That must, indeed, my lord, have shocked you.

Lord Med. Oh' 'twas nothing to what I suffered after, when farther urging her to satisfy my curiosity, she told me her mother's name and family! The apparent confusion this threw me into, roused her in her turn to ask me some questions, which brought about this amazing explanation.

Col. Med. She could not know you by name, my lord, as it was since my birth you assumed that with the title of Medway.

Lord Med. True.-She had heard of me by my own family name, and asked me, with a faltering voice, whether I had not formerly been at Lisbon, and borne the name of Selby. My acknowledging that I had, threw her into agonies, from which I, with difficulty, recovered her.

Col. Med. Did you never know, my lord, that you had a daughter by that lady?

Lord Med. Oh, no, no! I was recalled to England early in my amour with her. I married soon after my return, and, thoughtless and young as I then was, never inquired after her more.

Col. Med. How then, my lord, can you be certain of this fact

Lord Med. Oh, Medway! by too sure an evidence -The penitence and deep remorse of a dying woman! The unhappy lady confessed the secret, with all its circumstances, to this her daughter, when she was on her death-bed.

Col. Med. Mrs. Knightly, then, had passed for Mr. Richly's daughter?

Lord Mcd. She had; the match between him and her mother was hastily concluded by her friends, immediately after my departure. At the time of this lady's birth, Mr. Richly was absent on his affairs in the Indies; and though she came into the world in less than seven months after the marriage, yet (this circumstance being carefully concealed from him) he never doubted of her being his own.

Col. Med. Poor Clara! she then has been doubly

ronged, in being deprived of her birth-right, as well s in losing the unequal portion which her father left

er.

Lord Med. That was the cause which wrung the ecret from her dying mother's breast. Her deceased usband had, through a partial fondness for his suposed eldest daughter, left her such a disproportionte share of his wealth; and the mother, in divulging he secret, charged Mrs. Knightly, with her last mreath, to do justice to her sister. This she herself, n the hurry of her shame, surprise, and grief, acowledged to me.

was

Col. Med. I long to know, my lord, what resulted from this extraordinary interview.

Lord Med. Mrs. Knightly's agitations are not to be described. She wept and wrung her hands. I mixed my tears with her's; and while she fell on her knees before me, I involuntarily dropped on one of mine, and begged of her to accept of a blessing from her repentant father. She strained me to her bosom; then rising with a noble air, she made a sorrowful and silent motion with her hand that I should leave her. I did so; and hastened home, to brood over my own reflections—Oh, ́such reflections, such reflections, George!

Col. Med. My lord, there is something so extraordinary in this event, that it looks as if Providence itself had interposed.

Lord Med. Oh, Medway, 'tis for your sake then; I do not deserve the care of Heaven!

Col. Med. I beg, my lord, you will not entertain such desponding thoughts, but hope the best.

Lord Med. George! there's no foundation here for hope; I want that within which should support me. It is not the flashiness of wit, or vanity of superior talents that can avail me in an hour like this. I'd give them all, nay, the whole world, were I master of it, to be possessed of such a virtuous self-acquitted heart as yours.

Col. Med. Your thinking thus, my lord, makes you almost the very man you wish to be.

Lord Med. Oh, George, George! words cannot describe the anguish which I feel. I should be resigned to it, did it concern myself only, as the just punishment of a life of folly and vice; but when I think of you and of your mother, I am distracted.

Enter Lady MEDWAY.

Lady Med. My dear ! [Lord Medway turns from her.] Medway, why do you let your father sink thus under his apprehensions?

Col. Med. Do you speak to him, madam, he wants your tenderness to soothe the troubles of his mind.

Lady Med. My dear, you have no cause to be thus affected; I come a happy messenger of joyful news to you.

Lord Med. Joyful, do you say! that would indeed surprise me.

Lady Med. Mrs. Knightly is in my chamber, my We have had a long conversation. She has

lord.