by my request, that you will come to us, as soon as you can
with propriety leave Lady Luneham.

"Come, my dear Miss Milner, and find in your once rigid monitor a
faithful confidante. I will no longer threaten to disclose a secret you
have trusted me with, but leave it to the wisdom, or sensibility of
_his_ heart, (who is now to penetrate into the hearts of our sex, in
search of one that may beat in unison with his own) to find it out. I no
longer condemn, but congratulate you on your passion; and will assist
you with all my advice and my earnest wishes, that it may obtain a
return."

This letter was another of those excruciating pleasures, that almost
reduced Miss Milner to the grave. Her appetite forsook her; and she
vainly endeavoured, for several nights, to close her eyes. She thought
so much upon the prospect of accomplishing her wishes, that she could
admit no other idea; nor even invent one probable excuse for leaving
Lady Luneham before the appointed time, which was then at the distance
of two months. She wrote to Miss Woodley to beg her contrivance, to
reproach her for keeping the secret so long from her, and to thank her
for having revealed it in so kind a manner at last. She begged also to
be acquainted how Mr. Dorriforth (for still she called him by that name)
spoke and thought of this sudden change in his destiny.

Miss Woodley's reply was a summons for her to town upon some pretended
business, which she avoided explaining, but which entirely silenced Lady
Luneham's entreaties for her stay.

To her question concerning Lord Elmwood she answered, "It is a subject
on which he seldom speaks--he appears just the same he ever did, nor
could you by any part of his conduct, conceive that any such change had
taken place." Miss Milner exclaimed to herself, "I am glad he is not
altered--if his words, looks, or manners, were any thing different from
what they formerly were, I should not like him so well." And just the
reverse would have been the case, had Miss Woodley sent her word he was
changed. The day for her leaving Bath was fixed; she expected it with
rapture, but before its arrival, sunk under the care of expectation; and
when it came, was so much indisposed, as to be obliged to defer her
journey for a week.

At length she found herself in London--in the house of her guardian--and
that guardian no longer bound to a single life, but _enjoined_ to marry.
He appeared in her eyes, as in Miss Woodley's, the same