My meditations were interrupted by the chambermaid, who, tapping at my door, said she came to tell me “that the gentleman that belonged to the young lady that I was so kind to, was waiting breakfast for me.”

The thought of sitting at table with the dear creature whose brains I had so nearly spilled upon the road the night before quite overcame me; and leaving the fabric of my history to chance or to inspiration, I darted from my bedroom to the parlour, where the stranger awaited me.  He received me with great cordiality, again expressed his obligations, and informed me that his name was Somerville, of ——.

I had some faint recollection of having heard the name mentioned by my father, and was endeavouring to recall to mind on what occasion, when Mr Somerville interrupted me by saying, that he hoped he should have the pleasure of knowing the name of the young gentleman who had conferred such an obligation upon him.  I answered that my name was Mildmay; for I had no time to tell a lie.

“I should be happy to think,” said he, “that you were the son of my old friend and school-fellow, Mr Mildmay, of ——­; but that cannot well be,” said he, “for he had only two sons—­one at college, the other as brave a sailor as ever lived, and now in the Mediterranean:  but perhaps you are some relation of his?”

He had just concluded this speech, and before I had time to reply to it, the door opened, and Miss Somerville entered.  We have all heard a great deal about “love at first sight;” but I contend that the man who would not, at the very first glimpse of Emily Somerville, have fallen desperately in love with her, could have had neither heart nor soul.  If I thought her lovely when she lay in a state of insensibility, what did I think of her when her form had assumed its wonted animation, and her cheeks their natural colour?  To describe a perfect beauty never was my forte.  I can only say, that Miss Somerville, as far as I am a judge, united in her person all the component parts of the finest specimen of her sex in England; and these were joined in such harmony by the skilful hand of Nature, that I was ready to kneel down and adore her.

As she extended her white hand to me, and thanked me for my kindness, I was so taken aback with the sudden appearance and address of this beautiful vision, that I knew not what to say.  I stammered out something, but have no recollection whether it was French or English.  I lost my presence of mind, and the blushes of conscious guilt on my face at that moment, might have been mistaken for those of unsophisticated innocence.  That these external demonstrations are often confounded, and that such was the case on the present occasion, there can be no doubt.  My embarrassment was ascribed to that modesty ever attendant on real worth.

It has been said that true merit blushes at being discovered; but I have lived to see merit that could not blush, and the want of it that could, while the latter has marched off with all the honours due to the former.  The blush that burned on my cheek, at that moment, would have gone far to have condemned a criminal at the Old Bailey; but in the countenance of a handsome young man was received as the unfailing marks of “a pure ingenuous soul.”