d took them out of her hand, saying,

"Perhaps you had rather have coffee?"

Her lips moved, but he could not hear what she said.

A servant came in, and told Lord Elmwood, "The carriage was at the
door."

He replied, "Very well." But though he had breakfasted, he did not
attempt to move.

At last, rising briskly, as if it was necessary to go in haste when he
did go; he took up his hat, which he had brought with him into the room,
and was turning to Miss Woodley to take his leave, when Sandford cried,
"My Lord, you are in a great hurry." And then, as if he wished to give
poor Miss Milner every moment he could, added, (looking about) "I don't
know where I have laid my gloves."

Lord Elmwood, after repeating to Miss Woodley his last night's farewell,
now went up to Miss Milner, and taking one of her hands, again held it
between his, but still without speaking--while she, unable to suppress
her tears as heretofore, suffered them to fall in torrents.

"What is all this?" cried Sandford, going up to them in anger.

They neither of them replied, or changed their situation.

"Separate this moment," cried Sandford, "or resolve to be separated only
by--death."

The commanding and awful manner in which he spoke this sentence, made
them both turn to him in amazement, and as it were, petrified with the
sensation his words had caused.

He left them for a moment, and going to a small bookcase in one corner
of the room, took out of it a book, and returning with it in his hand,
said,

"Lord Elmwood, do you love this woman?"

"More than my life." He replied, with the most heartfelt accents.

He then turned to Miss Milner--"Can you say the same by him?"

She spread her hands over her eyes, and exclaimed, "Oh, Heavens!"

"I believe you _can_ say so," returned Sandford; "and in the name of
God, and your own happiness, since this is the state of you both, let me
put it out of your power to part."

Lord Elmwood gazed at him with wonder! and yet, as if enraptured by the
sudden change this conduct gave to his prospects.

She, sighed with a kind of trembling ecstasy; while Sandford, with all
the dignity of his official character, delivered these words----

"My Lord, while I thought my counsel might save you from the worst of
misfortunes, conjugal strife, I importuned you hourly, and set forth
your danger in the light it appeared to me. But though old, and a
priest, I can submit to think I have been in an error; and I now