Page:Duty and Inclination 2.pdf/66

64 than it was associated with the idea, "the man who has ruined myself and family!"

Mrs. De Brooke and her daughters resided in the gay capital of London comparatively secluded, associating with but a few friends, the most intimate of whom, as formerly, being Mr. and Mrs. Philimore; to whom was now united their eldest son, Edmund Philimore, who, having grown to manhood, had left his college avocations, for the purpose of exercising his ministerial functions in the church, and who formed an agreeable acquisition to the society of his parents and their friends.

Mrs. Herbert also had flown to embrace her dear children—such being the epithet she ever bestowed upon Oriana and Rosilia.

Her son, the former youthful admirer of the younger sister, had then attained the age of twenty; his mind fraught with recollections of the past, he could not, without revived impressions, survey the object which produced them. His person was tall and well made, his features regular, yet withal deficient in expression: it remained for the maternal eye alone of good Mrs. Herbert to contemplate him with the satisfaction of one who discovers nought to disapprove.

With all a parent's pride she had presented him before Rosilia, her favourite, with whom she thought