subject for compassion, but she knew that
lady had resignation to bear any lot with patience, and that a trial of
her fortitude might be more flattering to her vanity than to be Countess
of Elmwood: in a word, she saw no one's misfortunes equal to her own,
because she saw no one so little able to bear misfortune.

She replied to Miss Woodley's letter, and dwelt very long on that
subject which her friend had passed over lightly; this was another
indulgence; and this epistolary intercourse was now the only enjoyment
she possessed. From Bath she paid several visits with Lady Luneham--all
were alike tedious and melancholy.

But her guardian wrote to her, and though it was on a topic of sorrow,
the letter gave her joy--the sentiments it expressed were merely
common-place, yet she valued them as the dearest effusions of friendship
and affection; and her hands trembled, and her heart beat with rapture
while she wrote the answer, though she knew it would not be received by
him with one emotion like those which she experienced. In her second
letter to Miss Woodley, she prayed like a person insane to be taken home
from confinement, and like a lunatic protested, in sensible language,
she "Had no disorder." But her friend replied, "That very declaration
proves its violence." And she assured her, nothing less than placing her
affections elsewhere, should induce her to believe but that she was
incurable.

The third letter from Milner Lodge brought the news of Lord Elmwood's
death. Miss Woodley was exceedingly affected by this event, and said
little else on any other subject. Miss Milner was shocked when she read
the words "He is dead", and instantly thought,

"How transient are all sublunary things! Within a few years _I_ shall be
dead--and how happy will it then be, if I have resisted every temptation
to the alluring pleasures of this life!" The happiness of a peaceful
death occupied her contemplation for near an hour; but at length, every
virtuous and pious sentiment this meditation inspired, served but to
remind her of the many sentences she had heard from her guardian's lips
upon the same subject--her thoughts were again fixed on him, and she
could think of nothing besides.

In a short time after this, her health became impaired from the
indisposition of her mind; she languished, and was once in imminent
danger. During a slight delirium of her fever, Miss Woodley's name and
her guardian's were incessantly repeated; Lady Lune