hought of little, except of him. As soon as they withdrew into another
apartment, she remembered Miss Woodley; and turning her head suddenly,
saw her friend's face imprinted with suspicion and displeasure: this at
first was painful to her--but recollecting that in a couple of hours she
was to meet her guardian alone--to speak to him, and hear him speak to
her only--every other thought was absorbed in that one, and she
considered with indifference, the uneasiness, or the anger of her
friend.

Miss Milner, to do justice to her heart, did not wish to beguile
Dorriforth into the snares of love: could any supernatural power have
endowed her with the means, and at the same time have shewn to her the
ills that must arise from such an effect of her charms, she had
assuredly virtue enough to have declined the conquest; but without
enquiring what she proposed, she never saw him, without previously
endeavouring to look more attractive, than she would have desired,
before any other person. And now, without listening to the thousand
exhortations that spoke in every feature of Miss Woodley, she flew to a
looking-glass, to adjust her dress in a manner that she thought most
enchanting.

Time stole away, and the time of going to her guardian arrived. In his
presence, unsupported by the presence of any other, every grace that she
had practised, every look that she had borrowed to set off her charms,
were annihilated; and she became a native beauty, with the artless
arguments of reason only for her aid. Awed thus by his power, from
every thing but what she really was, she never was perhaps half so
bewitching, as in those timid, respectful, and embarrassed moments she
passed alone with him. He caught at those times her respect, her
diffidence, nay, even her embarrassment; and never would one word of
anger pass on either side.

On the present occasion, he first expressed the high satisfaction that
she had given him, by at length revealing to him the real state of her
mind.

"And when I take every thing into consideration, Miss Milner," added he,
"I rejoice that your sentiments happen to be such as you have owned.
For, although my Lord Frederick is not the very man I could have wished
for your perfect happiness; yet, in the state of human perfection and
human happiness, you might have fixed your affections with perhaps less
propriety; and still, where my unwillingness to thwart your inclinations
might not have permitted me to contend wi