She and Miss Woodley had taken an airing to see the poor child, young Rushbrook. Lord Elmwood inquiring of the ladies how they had passed their morning, Miss Milner frankly told him; and added, “What pain it gave her to leave the child behind, as he had again cried to come away with her.”
“Go for him then to-morrow,” said Lord Elmwood, “and bring him home.”
“Home!” she repeated, with surprise.
“Yes,” replied he, “if you desire it, this shall be his home—you shall be a mother, and I will, henceforward, be a father to him.”
Sandford, who was present, looked unusually sour at this high token of regard for Miss Milner; yet, with resentment on his face, he wiped a tear of joy from his eye, for the boy’s sake—his frown was the force of prejudice, his tear the force of nature.
Rushbrook was brought home; and whenever Lord Elmwood wished to shew a kindness to Miss Milner, without directing it immediately to her, he took his nephew upon his knee, talked to him, and told him, he “Was glad they had become acquainted.”
In the various, though delicate, struggles for power between Miss Milner and her guardian, there was not one person a witness to these incidents, who did not suppose, that all would at last end in wedlock—for the most common observer perceived, that ardent love was the foundation of every discontent, as well as of every joy they experienced. One great incident, however, totally reversed the hope of all future accommodation.
The fashionable Mrs. G—— gave a masked ball; tickets were presented to persons of quality and fashion; among the rest, three were sent to Miss Milner. She had never been at a masquerade, and received them with ecstasy—the more especially, as the masque being at the house of a woman of fashion, she did not conceive there could be any objection to her going. She was mistaken—the moment she mentioned it to Lord Elmwood, he desired her, somewhat sternly, “Not to think of being there.” She was vexed at the prohibition, but more at the manner in which it was delivered, and boldly said, “That she should certainly go.”
She expected a rebuke for this, but what alarmed her much more, he said not a word; but looked with a resignation, which foreboded her sorrow greater than the severest reproaches would have done. She sat for a minute, reflecting how to rouse him from this composure—she first thought of attacking him with upbraidings; then she thought of soothing him; and at last of laughing at him. This was the most dangerous of all, and yet, this she ventured upon.
“I am sure your Lordship,” said she, “with all your saintliness, can have no objection to my being present at the masquerade, if I go as a Nun.”