'Hold it then sacred!' cried Juliet, with strong emotion. 'Happy, thrice happy, in such a wish for your guide!'
She burst into tears.
'How your sorrows,' said he, tenderly, 'affect me! and how they interest me more deeply every moment! Tell me, then, sweet Miss Ellis!—amiable friend of my sister!—tell me why you are thus afflicted? and how, and in what manner, there is the least possibility that I may offer you my services, or procure you any consolation?'
The door here was abruptly opened by Mrs Howel.
Red with constrained rage, yet assuming a courteous demeanour, 'Your lordship will pardon,' she cried, 'my intrusion;' but Lady Aurora is so delicate, that I am always uneasy at keeping her ladyship out late.'
Highly provoked, yet deeply confused, Lord Melbury stammered that he was extremely sorry to have detained them, and begged that they would set out; promising to follow immediately.
Civilly smiling, though fixing her eyes upon his face in a manner that doubled his embarrassment, she entreated him to use his own influence with Lady Aurora, to prevail upon her ladyship to proceed.
Too much perturbed to resist, he ran out of the room; casting a glance at Juliet, as he passed, expressive of his chagrin at this interruption, and full of sensibility and respect.
Juliet dreadfully affrighted, and utterly confounded, had hid her streaming eyes, and conscious blushes, with her handkerchief, upon the entrance of Mrs Howel; but, when left alone with that tremendous lady, mingled terrour and indignation would have urged immediate flight, had she not been apprehensive of seeming to follow, and clandestinely, Lord Melbury.
Benign had been as yet the countenance, and melody itself the voice of Mrs Howel, compared with the expression of the one, or the sound of the other, while she now pronounced the following words: 'The terms, young woman, that I would keep with a person of name and character; the honour and delicacy due to myself in any intercourse with such a one, I set wholly aside in treating with an adventurer. I know all that has passed! I have heard every syllable! Convinced, therefore, of your deep laid scheme, to captivate to his disgrace a youth of an illustrious house, by revealing to him a pretended tale, which you craftily refuse to trust to all who may better judge, or try, its truth; I shall take, without delay, such measures as it behoves should be taken, by a friend of his family, and of himself, to effectually open his eyes to your arts, and to his own danger. In one word, therefore, Will you, and this instant, return to Brighthelmstone under the superintendence of Mrs Ireton?'