My Lord, I cannot conceive how I have it in my power to oblige you.  He took my hand,—­Yes, Madam, to make me happy,—­for ever happy,—­to make Sir James and Lady Powis happy, you have only to determine not to quit your native country.

Stop! my Lord, if you mean my going to Montpellier, I am determin’d.—­And are you really determin’d, Miss Warley?—­his face overspread with a dreadful paleness.

I am, my Lord,

But what are you determin’d?  Are you determined to distress your friends?

I wish not to distress my friends:  nothing would give me so much pain; but I must go;—­indeed I must.

He rose up;—­walk’d about the room,—­came back to his seat again, looking quite frantic,—­Good God! why should that sex practise so many arts?  He pray’d,—­intreated,—­left no argument untried.

I cannot picture his countenance, when I declared myself resolved.—­He caught both my hands, fixed his eyes stedfastly upon me.

Then you are inflexible, Madam?—­Nothing can move you to pity the most wretched of his sex.—­Know you the person living that could prevail?—­If you do,—­say so;—­I will bring him instantly on his knees.

There is not in the world, my Lord, one who could prevent me from paying my duty, my affection, my obedience, to Lady Mary Sutton:  if due to a parent, how much more from me to Lady Mary;—­a poor orphan, who have experienced from her the most maternal fondness?  The word orphan struck him; he reeled from me and flung himself into a chair opposite, leaning his head on a table which stood near.

I declare he distress’d me greatly;—­I know not what my thoughts were at that moment;—­I rose to quit the room; he started up.

Don’t leave me, Miss Warley;—­don’t leave me.  I will keep you no longer in the dark:  I must not suffer in your opinion,—­be the consequence—­

Here we were interrupted by Edmund.—­I was sorry he just then entered;—­I would have given the world to know what his Lordship was about to say.

When we were in the coach, instead of explaining himself, he assumed rather a chearful air; and asked, if my time was fix’d for going to France?

Not absolutely fix’d, my Lord; a month or two hence, perhaps.  This I said, that he might not know exactly the time when I shall set out.

A month or two! O! that will be just the thing, just as I could wish it.—­

What does your Lordship mean?

Only that I intend spending part of the winter in Paris; and if I should not be deemed an intruder, perhaps the same yacht may carry us over.

I was never more at a loss for a reply.

Going to France, my Lord! in a hesitating voice.—­I never heard,—­I never dreamt,—­your Lordship had such an intention.

Well, you do not forbid it, Miss Warley?  I shall certainty be of your party: