s of a menace that would be executed; and
he parted from his patron with congratulations upon his wisdom, and with
giving him the warmest assurances of his firm reliance on his _word._

Lord Elmwood having come to this resolution, was more composed than he
had been for several days before; while the horror of domestic
wrangles--a family without subordination--a house without oeconomy--in a
word, a wife without discretion, had been perpetually present to his
mind.

Mr. Sandford, although he was a man of understanding, of learning, and a
complete casuist, yet all the faults he himself committed, were
entirely--for want of knowing better. He constantly reproved faults in
others, and he was most assuredly too good a man not to have corrected
and amended his own, had they been known to him--but they were not. He
had been for so long a time the superior of all with whom he lived, had
been so busied with instructing others, that he had not recollected that
himself wanted instructions--and in such awe did his habitual severity
keep all about him, that although he had numerous friends, not one told
him of his failings--except just now Lord Elmwood, but whom, in this
instance, as a man in love, he would not credit. Was there not then some
reason for him to suppose he _had_ no faults? his enemies, indeed,
hinted that he had, but enemies he never harkened to; and thus, with all
his good sense, wanted the sense to follow the rule, _Believe what your
enemies say of you, rather than what is said by your friends._ This rule
attended to, would make a thousand people amiable, who are now the
reverse; and would have made _him_ a perfectly upright character. For
could an enemy to whom he would have listened, have whispered to
Sandford as he left Lord Elmwood, "Cruel, barbarous man! you go away
with your heart satisfied, nay, even elated, in the prospect that Miss
Milner's hopes, on which she alone exists, those hopes which keep her
from the deepest affliction, and cherish her with joy and gladness, will
all be disappointed. You flatter yourself it is for the sake of your
friend, Lord Elmwood, that you rejoice, and because he has escaped a
danger. You wish him well; but there is another cause for your
exultation which you will not seek to know--it is, that in his safety,
shall dwell the punishment of his ward. For shame! for shame! forgive
her faults, as this of yours requires to be forgiven."

Had any one said this to Sandford, whom he w