warning to
you"----

He was proceeding with the most austere looks, and pointed language,
when observing the shame, and the self-reproach that agitated her mind,
he divested himself in great measure of his resentment, and said,
mildly,

"Let this be a warning to you, how you deal in future with the friends
who wish you well. You have hurried me into a mistake that might have
cost me my life, or the life of the man you love; and thus exposed _you_
to misery, more bitter than death."

"I am not worthy of your friendship, Mr. Dorriforth," said she, sobbing
with grief, "and from this moment forsake me."

"No, Madam, not in the moment you first discover to me, how I can make
you happy."

The conversation appearing now to become of a nature in which the rest
of the company could have no share whatever, they were all, except Mr.
Sandford, retiring; when Miss Milner called Miss Woodley back, saying,
"Stay you with me; I was never so unfit to be left without your
friendship."

"Perhaps at present you can dispense with mine?" said Dorriforth. She
made no answer. He then, once more assured her Lord Frederick's life was
safe, and was quitting the room--but when he recollected in what
humiliation he had left her, turning towards her as he opened the door,
he added,

"And be assured, Madam, that my esteem for you, shall be _the same as
ever._"

Sandford, as he followed him, bowed, and repeated the same words--"And,
Madam, be assured that my esteem for you, shall be the same as ever."

CHAPTER XV.

This taunting reproof from Sandford made little impression upon Miss
Milner, whose thoughts were all fixed on a subject of much more
importance than the opinion which he entertained of her. She threw her
arms about her friend the moment they were left alone, and asked, with
anxiety, "What she thought of her behaviour?" Miss Woodley, who could
not approve of the duplicity she had betrayed, still wished to reconcile
her as much as possible to her own conduct, and replied, she "Highly
commended the frankness with which she had, at last, acknowledged her
sentiments."

"Frankness!" cried Miss Milner, starting. "Frankness, my dear Miss
Woodley! What you have just now heard me say, is all a falsehood."

"How, Miss Milner!"

"Oh, Miss Woodley," returned she, sobbing upon her bosom, "pity the
agonies of my heart, my heart, by nature sincere, when such are the
fatal propensities it cherishes, that I must submit to the gross