CHAPTER VIL

SIR Edward, not wholly discouraged by the denial with which Dorriforth had, with delicacy, acquainted him, still hoped for a kind reception; and he was so often at the house of Mrs. Horton, that Lord Frederick's jealousy was excited, and the tortures he suffered in consequence convinced him, beyond a doubt, of the sincerity of his affection. Every time he beheld the object of his pas sion (for he still continued his visits, though not so frequently as heretofore), he pleaded his cause with such ardour that Miss Woodley, who was sometimes present and ever compassionate, could not resist wishing him success. He now unequivocally offered marriage, and entreated that he might lay his proposals before Mr. Dorriforth, but that was positively forbidden.

Her reluctance he imputed, however, more to the known partiality of her guardian for the addresses of Sir Edward, than to any motive which depended upon herself; and to Mr. Dorriforth, he conceived a greater dislike than ever; believing that through his interposition, in spite of his ward's attachment, he might yet be deprived of her. But Miss Milner declared both to him and to her friend, that love had, at present, gained no influence over her mind. Yet did the watchful Miss Woodley oftentimes hear a sigh escape from her unknown to herself, till she was reminded of it; and then a crimson blush would instantly overspread her face. This seeming struggle with her passion endeared her more than ever to Miss Woodley; and she would even risk the displeasure of Dorriforth by her compliance with every new pursuit that might amuse those leisure hours which her friend, she now perceived, passed in heaviness of heart.

Balls, plays, incessant company, at length roused her guardian from that mildness with which he had been accustomed to treat her. Night after night his sleep had been disturbed by fears for her when abroad; morning after morning it had been broken by the clamour of her return. He therefore gravely said to her one forenoon as he met her accidentally upon the stair

case,

"I hope, Miss Milner, you pass this evening at home?"

Unprepared for the sudden question, she blushed and replied, "Yes." Though she knew she was engaged to a brilliant assembly, for which her milliner had been consulted a whole week.

She, however, flattered herself that what she had said might be excused as a mistake, the lapse of memory, or some other trifling fault, when he should know the truth. The truth was earlier divulged than she expected-for just as dinner was removed, her footman delivered a message to her from her milliner concerning a new dress for the evening the present evening particularly marked. Her guardian looked astonished!

"Yes, indeed; and I believe it is right that I should keep my first promise: is it not?" "The promise you gave me then, you do not think of any consequence ?"

"Yes, certainly, if you do."
"I do."

"And mean, perhaps, to make it of more con. sequence than it deserves, by being offended." "Whether or not, I am offended-you shall find I am." And he looked so.

She caught his piercing eyes-hers were immediately cast down, and she trembled—either with shame or with resentment.

Mrs. Horton rose from her chair-moved the decanters and fruit round the table-stirred the fire--and came back to her chair again, before another word was uttered. Nor had this good woman's officious labours taken the least from the awkwardness of the silence, which, as soon as the bustle she had contrived was over, returned in its full force.

At last, Miss Milner, rising with alacrity, was preparing to go out of the room,-when Dorriforth raised his voice, and in a tone of authority said,

"Miss Milner, you shall not leave the house this evening."

"Sir!" she exclaimed with a kind of doubt of what she had heard-a surprise which fixed her hand on the door she had half opened, but which now she showed herself irresolute whether to open wide in defiance, or to shut submissively. Before she could resolve, he rose from his chair and said, with a force and warmth she had never heard him use before,

"I command you to stay at home this evening." And he walked immediately out of the apartment by another door.

Her hand fell motionless from that which she held-she appeared motionless herself-till Mrs. Horton, "beseeching her not to be uneasy at the treatment she had received," made her tears flow. as if her heart was breaking.

Miss Woodley would have said something to comfort her, but she had caught the infection, and could not utter a word. It was not from any real cause of grief that Miss Woodley wept; but there was a magnetic quality in tears, which always attracted hers.

Mrs. Horton secretly enjoyed this scene, though the well meaning of her heart, and the ease of her conscience did not suffer her to think so. She, however, declared she had "long prognosticated it would come to this ;" and she "only thanked heaven it was no worse."

"What can be worse, madam?" cried Mies Milner; "am I not disappointed of the ball?"

"You don't mean to go then ?" said Mrs. Horton; "I commend your prudence; and I dare say it is more than your guardian gives you credit for."

"Do you think I would go," answered Miss Milner, with an eagerness that for a time suppressed her tears, "in contradiction to his will ?" "It is not the first time, I believe, you have acted contrary to that, Miss Milner," replied Mrs. Horton; and affected a tenderness of voice, to soften the harshness of her words.

"If you think so, madam, I see nothing that should prevent me now." And she went eagerly out of the room as if she had resolved to disobey him. This alarmed poor Miss Woodley.

"My dear aunt," she cried to Mrs. Horton, "follow and prevail upon Miss Milner to give up her design; she means to be at the ball in opposition to her guardian's will."

"Then," said Mrs. Horton, "I'll not be instrumental in deterring her-if she does go, it may be for the best; it may give Mr. Dorriforth a clearer knowledge what means are proper to convert her from evil."

"But, my dear madam, she must be preserved from the evil of disobedience; and as you tempted, you will be the most likely to dissuade her. But if you will not, I must endeavour."

Miss Woodley was leaving the room to perform this good work, when Mrs. Horton, in imitation of the example given her by Dorriforth, cried,

"Niece I command you not to stir out of this room this evening."

Miss Woodley obediently sat down-and though her thoughts and heart were in the chamber of her friend, she never marked by one impertinent word, or by one line of her face the restraint she suffered.

At the usual hour, Mr. Dorriforth and his ward were summoned to tea:-he entered with a countenance which evinced the remains of anger; his eye gave testimony of his absent thoughts; and though he took up a pamphlet affecting to read, it was plain to discern that he scarcely knew he held it in his hand.

Mrs. Horton began to make tea with a mind as intent upon something else as Dorriforth's-she longed for the event of this misunderstanding; and though she wished no ill to Miss Milner, yet with an inclination bent upon seeing something new-without the fatigue of going out of her own house-she was not over scrupulous what that novelty might be. But for fear she should have the imprudence to speak a word upon the subject which employed her thoughts, or even to look as if she thought of it at all, she pinched her lips close together, and cast her eyes on vacancy, lest their significant regards might expose her to detection. And for fear that any noise should intercept even the sound of what might happen, she walked across the room more softly than usual, and more

softly touched every thing she was obliged to lay her hand on.

Miss Woodley thought it her duty to be mute; -and now the gingle of a tea spoon was like a deep-toned bell, all was so quiet.

Mrs. Horton, too, in the self-approving reflection that she was not in the quarrel or altercation of any kind, felt herself at this moment remarkably peaceful and charitable. Miss Woodley did not recollect herself so, but was so in reality-in her, peace and charity were instinctive virtues, accident could not increase them.

The tea had scarcely been made, when a seivant came with Miss Milner's compliments, and she "did not mean to have any tea." The pamphlet shook in Dorriforth's hand while this message was delivered-he believed her to be dressing for her evening's entertainment; and now studied in what manner he should prevent, or resent her disobedience to his commands. He cougheddrank his tea-endeavoured to talk, but found it difficult-sometimes he read-and in this manner near two hours passed away, when Miss Milner came into the room. -Not dressed for a ball, but as she had risen from dinner. Dorriforth read on, and seemed afraid of looking up, lest he should see what he could not have pardoned. She drew a chair and sat at the table by the side of her delighted friend.

After a few minutes pause, and some little embarrassment on the part of Mrs. Horton, at the disappointment she had to encounter from this unexpected dutiful conduct, she asked Miss Milner, "if she would not have any tea?" She replied, "No, I thank you, ma'am,” in a voice so languid, compared with her usual one, that Dorriforth lifted up his eyes from the book; and seeing her in the same dress that she had worn all the day, turned them hastily away from her again-not with a look of triumph, but of confusion.

Whatever he might have suffered if he had seen Miss Milner decorated, and prepared to bid defiance to his commands; yet even upon that trial, he would not have endured half the painful sensations he now for a moment felt-he felt himself to blame.

He feared that he had treated her with too much severity-he admired her condescension, accused himself for having exacted it—he longed to ask her pardon-he did not know how.

A cheerful reply from her, to a question of Miss Woodley's, embarrassed him still more:-he wished that she had been sullen, he then would have had a temptation, or pretence to have been sullen

too.

With all these sentiments crowding fast upon his heart, he still read, or seemed to read, as if he took no notice of what was passing; till a servant came into the room and asked Miss Milner at what time she should want the carriage? to which she replied, "I don't go out to-night." Dorriforth then laid the book out of his hand, and,

by the time the servant had left the room, thus began:

"Miss Milner, I give you, I fear, some unkind proofs of my regard. It is often the ungrateful task of a friend to be troublesome-sometimes unmannerly. Forgive the duties of my office, and believe that no one is half so much concerned, if it robs you of any degree of happiness, as I myself am."

What he said, he looked with so much sincerity that, had she been burning with rage at his late behaviour, she must have forgiven him, for the regret which he so forcibly exprest. She was going to reply, but found she could not, without accompanying her words with tears, therefore, after the first attempt, she desisted.

On this he rose from his chair, and, going to her, said, "Once more show me your submission by obeying me a second time to-day. Keep your appointment and be assured that I shall issue my commands with more circumspection for the future, as I find how strictly they are complied with."

Miss Milner, the gay, the vain, the dissipated, the haughty Miss Milner sunk underneath this kindness, and wept with a gentleness and patience which did not give more surprise than it gave joy to Dorriforth. He was charmed to find her disposition so tractable-prophesied to himself the future success of his guardianship, and her eternal as well as temporal happiness from this specimen of compliance.

CHAPTER VIII.

ALTHOUGH Dorriforth was the good man that he has been described, there were in his nature shades of evil-there was an obstinacy, which himself and his friends termed firmness of mind; but which, had not religion and some contrary virtues weighed heavily in the balance, would have frequently degenerated into implacable stubbornness.

The child of a sister once beloved, who married a young officer against her brother's consent, was at the age of three years left an orphan, destitute of all support but from an uncle's generosity: but though Dorriforth maintained, he would never see him. Miss Milner whose heart was a receptacle for the unfortunate, no sooner was told the melancholy history of Mr. and Mrs. Rushbrook, the parents of the child, than she longed to behold the innocent inheritor of her guardian's resentment, and took Miss Woodley with her to see the boy. He was at a farm house a few miles from town; and his extreme beauty and engaging manners wanted not the sorrows to which he had been born, to give him farther recommendation to and kindness of her who had come to visit him. She looked at him with admiration and pity, and having

9*

endeared herself to him by the most affectionate words and caresses,-on her bidding him farewell, he cried most piteously to go along with her. Unused at any time to resist temptations, whether to reprehensible, or to laudible actions, she yielded to his supplications; and having overcome a few scruples of Miss Woodley's, determined to take the young Rushbrook to town, and present him to his uncle. This design was no sooner formed than executed. By making a present to the nurse, she readily gained her consent to part with him for a day or two; and an excess of joy denoted by the child on being placed in the carriage, repaid her beforehand for every reproof she might receive from her guardian, for the liberty she had taken.

"Besides," said she to Miss Woodley, who had still her fears, "do you not wish his uncle should have a warmer interest in his care than duty ?"— it is duty alone which induces Mr. Dorriforth to provide for him; but it is proper that affection should have some share in his benevolence-and how, when he grows older, will he be so fit an object of the love which compassion excites as he is at present.

Miss Woodley acquiesced. But before they arrived at their own door it came into Miss Milner's remembrance, that there was a grave sternness in the manners of her guardian when provoked; the recollection of which made her a little apprehensive for what she had done her friend, who knew him better than she did, was more so. They both became silent as they approached the street where they lived; for Miss Woodley, having once represented her fears, and having suppressed them in resignation to Miss Milner's better judgment, would not repeat them-and Miss Milner would not confess that they were now troubling of her.

Just, however, as the coach stopped at their home, she had the forecast and the humility to say, "We will not tell Mr. Dorriforth the child is his nephew, unless he should appear fond and pleased with him, and then I think we may venture without any danger."

This was agreed; and when Dorriforth entered the room just before dinner, poor Harry Rushbrook was introduced as the son of a lady who frequently visited there. The deception passed-his uncle shook hands with him, and at length, highly pleased with his engaging manner and applicable replies, took him on his knee, and caressed him with affection. Miss Milner could scarcely restrain the joy it gave her; but unluckily, Dorriforth said soon after to the child, "And now tell me your

name."

"Harry Rushbrook," replied he, with force and clearness of voice.

Dorriforth was holding him fondly round the waist as he stood with his feet upon his knees; and at this reply he did not throw him from him— but he removed his hands, which had supported him, so suddenly that the child, to prevent falling 265

on the floor, threw himself about his uncle's neck. Miss Milner and Miss Woodley turned aside to conceal their tears. "I had like to have been down," cried Harry, fearing no other danger. But his uncle took hold of each hand which had twined around him, and placed him immediately on the ground. The dinner being that instant served, he gave no greater marks of his resentment than calling for his hat, and walking instantly out of the house.

Miss Milner cried for anger; yet she did not show less kindness to the object of this vexatious circumstance: she held him in her arms while she sat at table, and repeatedly said to him (though he had not the sense to thank her), "That she would always be his friend."

The first emotions of resentment against Dorriforth being passed, she returned with her little charge to the farm house, before it was likely his uncle should come back; another instance of obedience, which Miss Woodley was impatient her guardian should know: she therefore inquired where he was gone, and sent him a note for the sole purpose of acquainting him with it, offering at the same time an apology for what had happened. He returned in the evening seemingly reconciled; nor was a word mentioned of the incident which had occurred in the former part of the day; still in his countenance remained the evidence of a perfect recollection of it, without one trait of compassion for his hapless nephew.

CHAPTER IX.

THERE are few things so mortifying to a proud spirit as to suffer by immediate comparison-men can hardly bear it, but to women the punishment is intolerable; and Miss Milner now laboured under this humiliation to a degree which gave her no small inquietude.

Miss Fenton, young, of exquisite beauty, elegant manners, gentle disposition, and discreet conduct, was introduced to Miss Milner's acquaintance by her guardian, and frequently, sometimes inadvertently, held up by him as a pattern for her to follow for when he did not say this in direct terms, it was insinuated by the warmth of his panegyric on those virtues in which Miss Fenton excelled, and in which his ward was obviously deficient. Conscious of her own inferiority in these subjects of her guardian's praise, Miss Milner, instead of being inspired to emulation, was provoked to envy.

Not to admire Miss Fenton was impossibleto find one fault with her person or sentiments was equally impossible-and yet to love her was unlikely.

That serenity of mind which kept her features in a continual placid form, though enchanting at the first glance, upon a second or third, fatigued

the sight for want of variety; and to have seen her distorted with rage, convulsed with mirth, or in deep dejection, had been to her advantage. But her superior soul appeared above those emotions, and there was more inducement to worship her as a saint than to love her as a woman. Yet Dorriforth, whose heart was not formed (at least not educated) for love, regarding her in the light of friendship only, beheld her as the most perfect model of her sex. Lord Frederick on first seeing her was struck with her beauty, and Miss Milner apprehended she had introduced a rival; but he had not seen her three times, before he called her "The most insufferable of Heaven's creatures," and vowed there was more charming variation in the plain features of Miss Woodley.

Miss Milner had a heart affectionate to her own sex, even where she saw them in possession of superior charms; but whether from the spirit of contradiction, from feeling herself more than ordinarily offended by her guardian's praise of this lady, or that there was a reserve in Miss Fenton that did not accord with her own frank and ingenuous disposition, so as to engage her esteem, certain it is that she took infinite satisfaction in hearing her beauty and virtues depreciated or turned into ridicule, particularly if Mr. Dorriforth was present. This was painful to him on many accounts; perhaps an anxiety for his ward's conduct was not among the least; and whenever the circumstance occurred, he could with difficulty restrain his anger. Miss Fenton was not only a person whose amiable qualities he admired, but she was soon to be allied to him by her marriage with his nearest relation, Lord Elmwood, a young nobleman whom he sincerely loved.

Lord Elmwood had discovered all that beauty in Miss Fenton which every common observer could not but see. The charms of her mind and of her fortune had been pointed out by his tutor; and the utility of the marriage, in perfect submission to his precepts, he never permitted himself to question.

This preceptor held with a magisterial power the government of his pupil's passions; nay, governed them so entirely that no one could perceive (nor did the young lord himself know) that he had

any.

This rigid monitor and friend was a Mr. Sandford, bred a Jesuit in the same college at which Dorriforth had since been educated, but previous to his education the order had been compelled to take another name. Sandford had been the tutor of Dorriforth as well as of his cousin, Lord Elm. wood, and by this double tie he seemed now entailed upon the family. As a jesuit, he was consequently a man of learning; possessed of steadiness to accomplish the end of any design once meditated, and of sagacity to direct the views of men more powerful, but less ingenious than himself. The young earl, accustomed in his infancy to fear him as his master, in his youthful manhood

received every new indulgence with gratitude, and at length loved him as a father :-nor had Dorriforth as yet shaken off similar sensations.

It

Mr. Sandford perfectly knew how to influence the sentiments and sensations of all humankind, but yet he had the forbearance not to "draw all hearts towards him." There were some whose hatred he thought not unworthy of his pious labours to excite; and in that pursuit he was more rapid in his success than even in procuring esteem. was an enterprise in which he succeeded with Miss Milner even beyond his most sanguine wish. She had been educated at an English boarding school, and had no idea of the superior and subordinate state of characters in a foreign seminary : besides, as a woman, she was privileged to say any thing she pleased; and, as a beautiful woman, she had a right to expect that whatever she pleased to say should be admired.

Sandford knew the hearts of women, as well as those of men, though he had passed but little of his time in their society ;-he saw Miss Milner's heart at the first sight of her person; and beholding in that small circumference a weight of folly that he wished to eradicate, he began to toil in the vineyard, eagerly courting her detestation of him, in the hope he could also make her abominate herself. In the mortifications of slight he was expert; and being a man of talents, whom all companies, especially those of her friends, respected, he did not begin by wasting that reverence he so highly valued upon ineffectual remonstrances, of which he could foresee the reception, but wakened her attention by his neglect of her.

He spoke of her in her presence as of an indifferent person, sometimes forgetting even to name her when the subject required it; then would ask her pardon, and say that he "really did not recollect her," with such seeming sorrow for his fault, that she could not suppose the offence intended, and of course felt the affront more acutely

While, with every other person she was the principal, the cause upon whom a whole party depended for conversation, cards, music, or dancing, with Mr. Sandford she found that she was of no importance. Sometimes she tried to consider this disregard of her as merely the effect of ill breeding; but he was not an ill bred man: he was a gentleman by birth, and one who had kept the best company-a man of sense and learning. "And such a man slights me without knowing it," she said-for she had not dived so deeply into the powers of simulation as to suspect that such careless inanners were the result of art.

This behaviour of Mr. Sandford had its desired effect-it humbled her in her own opinion more than a thousand sermons would have done, preached on the vanity of youth and beauty. She felt an inward shame at the insignificance of these qualities that she never knew before; and would have been cured of all her pride, had she not possessed a degree of spirit beyond the generality of

her sex-such a degree as even Mr. Sandford, with all his penetration, did not expect to find. She determined to resent his treatment; and, entering the lists as his declared enemy, give to the world a reason why he did not acknowledge her sovereignty, as well as the rest of her devoted subjects.

She now commenced hostilities against all his arguments, his learning, and his favourite axioms; and by a happy talent of ridicule, in want of other weapons for this warfare, she threw in the way of the holy father as great trials of his patience as any that his order could have substituted in penance. Many things he bore like a martyr--at others, his fortitude would forsake him, and he would call on her guardian, his former pupil, to interpose with his authority: she would then declare that she only had acted thus "to try the good man's temper, and that if he had combated with his fretfulness a few moments longer, she would have acknowledged his claim to canonization; but that, having yielded to the sallies of his anger, he must now go through numerous other probations."

If Miss Fenton was admired by Dorriforth, by Sandford she was adored-and, instead of placing her as an example to Miss Milner, he spoke of her as of one endowed beyond Miss Milner's power of imitation. Often, with a shake of his head and a sigh, would he say,

"No; I am not so hard upon you as your guardian; I only desire you to love Miss Fenton; to resemble her, I believe, is above your ability."

This was too much to bear composedly-and poor Miss Woodley, who was generally a witness of these controversies, felt a degree of sorrow at every sentence which, like the foregoing, chagrin ed and distressed her friend. Yet as she suffered too for Mr. Sandford, the joy of her friend's reply was mostly abated by the uneasiness it gave to him. But Mrs. Horton felt for none but the right reverend priest; and often did she feel so violently interested in his cause, that she could not refrain giving an answer herself in his behalf-thus doing the duty of an adversary with all the zeal of an advocate.

CHAPTER X.

MR. Sandford finding his friend Dorriforth frequently perplexed in the management of his ward, and he himself thinking her incorrigible, gave his counsel, that a suitable match should be immediately sought out for her, and the care of so dangerous a person given into other hands. Dorriforth acknowledged the propriety of this advice, but la mented the difficulty of pleasing his ward as to the quality of her lover; for she had refused, besides Sir Edward Ashton, many others of cqual preten