'What, Madam, am I now to do? 'Tis to your influence and exertions I am indebted for the attempt which I have made, to procure that self-dependance which I so earnestly covet. I shall always be most ready to acknowledge this obligation; but, permit me to solicit your directions, and, I hope, your aid, how I may try to allay the storm which accident has so cruelly raised around me; but which misconception alone can make dangerous or durable.'

'Very true, my dear Miss Ellis, if every body judged you as justly as I do; but when people have enemies—'

'Enemies?' repeated Ellis, amazed, 'surely, Madam, you are not serious?—Enemies? Can I possibly have any enemies? That, in a situation so little known, and so unlikely to be understood, I may have failed to create friends, I can easily, indeed, conceive,—but, offending no one, distressed, yet not importunate, and seeking to obviate my difficulties by my exertions; to supply my necessities by my labours,—surely I cannot have been so strangely, so unaccountably unfortunate as to have made myself any enemies?'

'Why you know, my dear Miss Ellis, how I blamed you, from the first, for that nonsense of telling Miss Brinville that she had no ear for music: what could it signify whether she had or not? She only wanted to learn that she might say she learnt; and you had no business to teach, but that you might be paid for teaching.'

'And is it possible, Madam, that I can have made her really my enemy, merely by forbearing to take what I thought would be a dishonourable advantage, of her ignorance of that defect?'

'Nay, she has certainly no great reason to be thankful, for she would never have found it out; and I am sure nobody else would ever have told it her! She is firmly persuaded that you only wanted to give Sir Lyell Sycamore an ill opinion of her accomplishments; for she declares that she has seen you unceasingly pursuing him, with all the wiles imaginable. One time she surprised you sitting entirely aloof, at the Welshman's benefit, till he joined you; another time, she caught you waiting for him in the aisle of the church; and, in short—'

'Miss Arbe,' cried Ellis, interrupting her, with undisguised resentment, 'if Miss Brinville can be amused by inventing, as well as propagating, premeditated motives for accidental occurrences, you must permit me to decline being the auditress, if I cannot escape being the object of such fictitious censure!'

Miss Arbe, somewhat ashamed, repeated her assurances of personal good opinion; and then, with many pompous professions of regard and concern, owned that there had been a discussion at Lady Kendover's, after church-time on Sunday, which had concluded by a final decision, of her ladyship's, that it was utterly impossible to admit a young woman, so obscurely involved in strange circumstances, and so ready to fall into low company, to so confidential a kind of intercourse, as that of giving instructions to young persons of fashion. Every body else, of course, would abide by her ladyship's decision, 'and therefore, my dear Miss Ellis,' she continued, 'I am excessively sorry, but our plan is quite overset. I am excessively sorry, I assure you; but what can be done? However, I have not above three minutes to stay, so do let us try that sweet adagio. I want vastly to conquer the horrid long bars of that eternal cadenza.'

Ellis, for a few moments, stood almost stupified with amazement at so selfish a proposition, at the very instant of announcing so ruinous a sentence. But disdain soon supplied her with philosophy, and scorning to make an appeal for a consideration so unfeelingly withheld, she calmly went to her harp.

When Miss Arbe, however, rose to be gone, she begged some advice relative both to the debts which she had contracted, and those which she was entitled to claim; but Miss Arbe, looking at her watch, and hurrying on her gloves, declared that she had not a second to lose. 'I shall see you, however,' she cried, in quitting the chamber, 'as often as possible: I can find a thousand pretences for coming to Miss Matson's, without any body's knowing why; so we can still have our delightful little musical meetings.'