“Nay, that is unkind,” cried Miss Woodley; “for if you had been here”——
“—I would not have said what I did,” replied Miss Milner, “but left him to vindicate himself.”
“Is it possible that I can want any vindication? Who would think it worth their while to slander so unimportant a person as I am?”
“The man who has the charge of Miss Milner,” replied Lord Frederick, “derives a consequence from her.”
“No ill consequence, I hope, my Lord?” said Dorriforth, with a firmness in his voice, and with an eye so fixed, that his antagonist hesitated for a moment in want of a reply—and Miss Milner softly whispering to him, as her guardian turned his head, to avoid an argument, he bowed acquiescence. And then, as if in compliment to her, he changed the subject;—with an air of ridicule he cried,
“I wish, Mr. Dorriforth, you would give me absolution of all my sins, for I confess they are many, and manifold.”
“Hold, my Lord,” exclaimed Dorriforth, “do not confess before the ladies, lest, in order to excite their compassion, you should be tempted to accuse yourself of sins you have never yet committed.”
At this Miss Milner laughed, seemingly so well pleased, that Lord Frederick, with a sarcastic sneer, repeated,
“From Abelard it came,
And Eloisa still must love the name.”
Whether from an inattention to the quotation, or from a consciousness it was wholly inapplicable, Dorriforth heard it without one emotion of shame or of anger—while Miss Milner seemed shocked at the implication; her pleasantry was immediately suppressed, and she threw open the sash and held her head out at the window, to conceal the embarrassment these lines had occasioned.