xaggerate the
wickedness.

She, who could, and who did pardon Miss Milner, was the person who saw
her passion in the severest light, and resolved upon every method,
however harsh, to root it from her heart--nor did she fear success,
resting on the certain assurance, that however deep her love might be
fixed, it would never be returned. Yet this confidence did not prevent
her taking every precaution, lest Dorriforth should come to the
knowledge of it. She would not have his composed mind disturbed with
such a thought--his steadfast principles so much as shaken by the
imagination--nor overwhelm him with those self-reproaches which his fatal
attraction, unpremeditated as it was, would still have drawn upon him.

With this plan of concealment, in which the natural modesty of Miss
Milner acquiesced, there was but one effort for which this unhappy ward
was not prepared; and that was an entire separation from her guardian.
She had, from the first, cherished her passion without the most remote
prospect of a return--she was prepared to see Dorriforth, without ever
seeing him more nearly connected to her than as her guardian and friend;
but not to see him at all--for _that_, she was not prepared.

But Miss Woodley reflected upon the inevitable necessity of this measure
before she made the proposal; and then made it with a firmness that
might have done honour to the inflexibility of Dorriforth himself.

During the few days that intervened between her open confession of a
passion for Lord Frederick and this proposed plan of separation, the
most intricate incoherence appeared in the character of Miss Milner--and
in order to evade a marriage with him, and conceal, at the same time,
the shameful propensity which lurked in her breast, she was once even on
the point of declaring a passion for Sir Edward Ashton.

In the duel which had taken place between Lord Frederick and Dorriforth,
the latter had received the fire of his antagonist, but positively
refused to return it; by which he had kept his promise not to endanger
his Lordship's life, and had reconciled Sandford, in great measure, to
his behaviour--and Sandford now (his resolution once broken) no longer
refused entering Miss Milner's house, but came whenever it was
convenient, though he yet avoided the mistress of it as much as
possible; or showed by every word and look, when she was present, that
she was still less in his favour than she had ever been.

He visited Dorriforth