taken
her over with him, and seen her safe in her own palace, if he would go
upon so hated, and so fruitless, as well as so hazardous an errand: but
he had denied her this poor favour.

This refusal, she owned, had put her out of all patience. She was
unhappily passionate; but was the most placable of her sex. What, madam,
said she, can affect a woman, if slight, indignity, and repulse, from a
favoured person, is not able to do it? A woman of my condition to come
over to England, to solicit--how can I support the thought--and to be
refused the protection of the man she prefers to all men; and her request
to see her safe back again, though but as the fool she came over!--You
may blame me, madam--but you must pity me, even were you to have a heart
the sister heart of your inflexible brother.

In vain did Lady L---- plead to her Lady Clementina's deplorable
situation; the reluctance of his own relations to part with him; and the
magnanimity of his self-denial in a hundred instances, on the bare
possibility of being an instrument to restore her: she could not bear to
hear her speak highly of the unhappy lady. She charged Clementina with
the pride of her family, to which she attributed their deserved calamity;
[Deserved! Cruel lady! How could her pitiless heart allow her lips to
utter such a word!] and imputed meanness to the noblest of human minds,
for yielding to the entreaties of a family, some of the principals of
which, she said, had treated him with an arrogance that a man of his
spirit ought not to bear.

Lady Maffei came in. She seems dependent upon her niece. She is her
aunt by marriage only: and Lady L---- speaks very favourably of her from
the advice she gave, and her remonstrances to her kinswoman. Lady Maffei
besought her to compose herself, and return to the company.

She could not bear, she said, to return to the company, the slighted, the
contemned object, she must appear to be to every one in it. I am an
intruder, said she, haughtily; a beggar, with a fortune that would
purchase a sovereignty in some countries. Make my excuses to your
sister, to the rest of the company--and to that fine young lady--whose
eyes, by their officious withdrawing from his, and by the consciousness
that glowed in her face whenever he addressed her, betrayed, at least to
a jealous eye, more than she would wish to have seen--But tell her, that
all lovely and blooming as she is, she must have no hope, while
Clementina lives.

I