view of relieving their apprehensive thoughts, by imparting them; no one, however, imagined that any action with the English army would take place that day, yet every heart throbbed high with anxious expectation, and every countenance was overcast with melancholy and dejection.

About three o'clock, a most dreadful cannonade commencing in the very direction which our army had taken, produced in the city general alarm; and it was only then, when in the tremendous roar of cannon she imagined she heard the dying groans of Plunket and her husband, that Geraldine's terror and consternation rose to its greatest height, and urged her almost to desperation. Unable to remain within, and endure such torturing suspense, she darted through the streets, demanding, with wildness and affright in her air, of all whom she met information. Mere conjecture, however, was all the information that any one had to give; and this tending rather to increase than to al

VOL. V.

F

lay

lay her fears, she returned to the house, and there, prostrate on her knees, prayed for the general safety of the English arbut particularly for those about whom she felt most interested.

my,

While thus piously employed, she was quite astounded by the heavy cannonading, which became more furious, and approached, as she imagined, still nearer, till, unable to remain quiet, she again rushed forth, and, with other British ladies, wandered distractedly through the park the whole evening, or ascended the ramparts, from whence they could best descry all who approached, and where they remained till the last discharge of cannon died away in faint murmuring sounds on the gales of the evening.

Harassed and fatigued, more from the agitation of the day than the loss of rest on the preceding night, Mrs. Blandford threw herself on the bed, during this transient calm produced by the cessation of the cannon, where acute feelings, worked on by pity, tenderness, and terror, vielded

yielded at length to the complete exhaustion of her strength, and she enjoyed a few hours slumber: out of this repose she was suddenly aroused, between the hours of twelve and one o'clock, by an outcry that the French were coming, which alarm caused, through the town, the greatest confusion, by the efforts each one made to provide for their own immediate safety. This however soon appeared to be a false report, caused by the noise of some heavy artillery retreating, as it was said, towards the city, but which, on the contrary, advanced in another direction, and passed through soon after, to join the allied army.

Geraldine's rest for this night was thus broken, and to invoke again the aid of sleep would be fruitless, for fresh alarms succeeded, caused now by the retreat of the Belgian cavalry, who, urged by fear, fled hastily through the town, and in their flight led the people to suppose the French were marching to the attack of Brussels. This therefore became a moF 2 ment

ment of universal trepidation, alike for the strangers resident in the city, and the an cient and established inhabitants; the lat ter employed themselves in securing their most valuable effects, and providing for their personal safety, the former in seeking any possible conveyance to carry them, to Antwerp or elsewhere, For Geraldine, more anxious about the pending fate of her friends engaged in the action than her own immediate preservation, she thought not of retiring from a place where she could gain the earliest information, but on the watch for continual intelligence, would every instant rush into the street, to make inquiries, of the passing strangers.

An aide-de-camp arriving at length from the duke of Wellington, quieted in some degree this alarm. The British forces, he announced, though engaging under great disadvantages, had fought nobly, repulsed the enemy in their attack, and remained masters of the field, by keeping their positions. However, the fall of the duke of Brunswick,

Brunswick, whose remains had been conveyed through Brussels-the waggons laden with the wounded, which now began to arrive-and the melancholy spectacle presenting itself in the streets, of the dead and dying, made a great and awful impression on the minds of the people, and prepared them for the news which, before noon, was received, that the duke of Wellington and the English army were retreating.

From some of the wounded who arrived in the evening, Mrs. Blandford received a confirmation of this intelligence, and news also, that major Blandford was still safe and unhurt, having been bravely rescued in their retreat, from certain death, by captain Plunket, who was himself dangerously wounded in his defence, having been closely engaged with the major's assailants, while he, considering only his own personal safety, galloped off. The most magnanimous effort of duty on the part of our heroine could scarce lead her