'I waited on you, Madam,' said Mrs. Stafford, 'supposing you were acquainted—too well acquainted—with my name and business.'
'No, upon my honour,' said the young person, 'I cannot even guess.'
'You are very young,' said Mrs. Stafford, 'and, I fear, very unfortunate. Be assured I wish not either to reproach or insult you; but only to try if you cannot be prevailed upon to quit a manner of life, which surely, to a person of your appearance, must be dreadful.'
'It is indeed dreadful!' sighed the young woman—'nor is it the least dreadful part of it that I am exposed to this.'
She now fell into an agony of tears; which affected both Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline so much, that forgetting their fears and suspicions, they both endeavoured tenderly to console her. Having in some measure succeeded, and Mrs. Stafford having summoned resolution to tell her what were her apprehensions, the stranger saw that to give her a simple detail of her real situation was the only method she had to satisfy her doubts, and to secure her compassion and secresy; for which reason she determined to do it; and Mrs. Stafford, whose countenance was all ingenuousness as well as her heart, assured her she should never repent her confidence; while Emmeline, whose looks and voice were equally soothing and engaging to the unhappy, expressed the tenderest interest in the fate of a young creature who seemed but little older than herself, and to have been thrown from a very different sphere into her present obscure and uncomfortable manner of life.
The stranger would have attempted to relate her history to them immediately; but her maid, a steady woman of three or four and thirty, told her that she was certainly unable then, and begged the ladies not to insist upon it till the evening, or the next day; adding—'My Lady has been very poorly indeed all this week, and is continually fainting away; and you see, ladies, how much she has been frightened this morning, and I am sure she will not be able to go through it.'
To the probability of this observation, the two friends assented; and the young lady naming the next morning to gratify their curiosity, they left her, Mrs. Stafford first offering her any thing her house afforded. To which she replied, that at present she was tolerably well supplied, and only conjured them to observe the strictest secresy, without which, she said, she was undone.
At the appointed time they returned; equally eager to hear, and, if possible, to relieve, the sorrows of this young person, for whom they could not help being interested, tho' they yet knew not how far she deserved their pity.
She had prepared her own little room as well as it would admit of to receive them, and sat waiting their arrival with some degree of composure. They contemplated with concern the ruins of eminent beauty even in early youth, and saw an expression of helpless sorrow and incurable unhappiness, which had greatly injured the original lustre and beauty of her eyes and countenance. A heavy languor hung on her whole frame. She tried to smile; but it was a smile of anguish; and their looks seemed to distress and pain her. Mrs. Stafford and Emmeline, to relieve her, took out their work; and when they were seated at it, she hesitated—then sighed and hesitated again—and at length seemed to enter on her story with desperate and painful resolution, as if to get quickly and at once thro' a task which, however necessary, was extremely distressing. She began in a low and plaintive voice; and frequently stopped to summon courage to continue, while she wiped away the tears that slowly fell from her eyes.