'But Miss Ellis?' said Lady Aurora, looking around her, disappointed; 'I hope she is not more indisposed?'
'By no means. She is quite well again,' answered Mrs Maple, in haste to destroy a disposition to pity, which she thought conferred undue honour upon the stranger.
'But shall we not have the pleasure to see her?'
'She ... generally ... breakfasts in her own room,' answered Mrs Maple, with much hesitation.
'May I, then,' said Lady Aurora, going to the bell, 'beg that somebody will let her know how happy I should be to enquire after her health?'
'Your Ladyship is too good,' cried Mrs Maple, in great confusion, and preventing her from ringing; 'but Miss Ellis—I don't know why—is so fond of keeping her chamber, that there is no getting her out of it ... some how.—'
'Perhaps, then, she will permit me to go up stairs to her?'
'O no, not for the world! besides ... I believe she has walked out.'
Lady Aurora now applied to Selina, who was scampering away upon a commission of search; when Mrs Maple, following her, privately insisted that she should bring back intelligence that Miss Ellis was taken suddenly ill.
Selina was forced to comply, and Lady Aurora with serious concern, to return to Brighthelmstone ungratified.