Miss Arnold stopped, and seemed to hesitate. 'Well! Go on!' cried I impatiently.—'You know,' continued she, 'I could not answer his question in any other way, except by giving him some little instances of your—your good understanding with De Burgh; but still I could extort no answer from the impenetrable creature, except now and then a kind of grunt.'

'How tedious you are! Do proceed.'

'At last, when I found nothing else would do, I—I was obliged to have recourse to—to an expedient, which produced an immediate effect. And now, Ellen, I am convinced that Maitland loves you to distraction!'

'Indeed! What? How?'

'Ah, Ellen! you have a thousand times more penetration than I. I would give the world for your faculty of reading the heart.'

'But, dear Juliet! how was it,—how did you discover——'

'Why, when nothing else seemed likely to avail, I—I thought I might venture to hint, just by way of a trifling instance of your intimacy with Lord Frederick, that—that you had—had borrowed a small sum from him.'

'Good heaven, Juliet! did you tell Maitland this? Oh! he will despise me for ever. Leave me,—treacherous,—you have undone me.'

'Ellen, my dearest Ellen,' said my friend, caressing me with the most humble affection, 'I own I was very wrong; but indeed—indeed, if you had seen how he was affected, you would have been convinced, that nothing else could have been so effectual. If you had seen how pale he grew, and how he trembled, and gasped for breath! You never saw a man in such agitation. Dear Ellen, forgive me! You know I could have no motive except to serve you.'

In spite of my vexation, I was not insensible to this statement, to which my vanity gave full credit; though the slightest comparison of the circumstances with the character of Maitland must have convinced me that they were exaggerated. At length, curiosity so far prevailed over my wrath, that I condescended to enquire what answer he had given to Miss Arnold's information? Miss Arnold replied, that the first words which he was able to utter, announced, that he must see me instantly. 'And why then,' I asked, 'is he gone in such haste?'