As the badness of the weather had prevented their usual morning’s exercise, the ladies were employed at their needles till the dinner bell called them away. “Do you think Lord Frederick is gone?” then whispered Miss Milner to Miss Woodley.—“I think not,” she replied.—“Go ask of the servants, dear creature.” And Miss Woodley went out of the room. She soon returned and said, apart, “He is now getting into his chariot; I saw him pass in violent haste through the hall; he seemed to fly.”
“Ladies, the dinner is waiting,” cried Mrs. Horton, and they repaired to the dining room, where Dorriforth soon after came, and engrossed their whole attention by his disturbed looks, and unusual silence. Before dinner was over, he was, however, more himself, but still he appeared thoughtful and dissatisfied. At the time of their evening walk he excused himself from accompanying them, and they saw him in a distant field with Mr. Sandford in earnest conversation; for Sandford and he often stopped on one spot for a quarter of an hour, as if the interest of the subject had so engaged them, they stood still without knowing it. Lord Elmwood, who had joined the ladies, walked home with them; Dorriforth entered soon after, in a much less gloomy humour than when he went out, and told his relation, that he and the ladies would dine with him the next day if he was disengaged; and it was agreed they should.
Still Dorriforth was in some perturbation, but the immediate cause was concealed till the day following, when, about an hour before the company’s departure from the Castle, Miss Milner and Miss Woodley were desired, by a servant, to walk into a separate apartment, in which they found Mr. Dorriforth with Mr. Sandford waiting for them. Her guardian made an apology to Miss Milner for the form, the ceremony, of which he was going to make use; but he trusted, the extreme weight which oppressed his mind, lest he should mistake the real sentiments of a person whose happiness depended upon his correct knowledge of them, would plead his excuse.
“I know, Miss Milner,” continued he, “the world in general allows to unmarried women great latitude in disguising their mind with respect to the man they love. I too, am willing to pardon any little dissimulation that is but consistent with a modesty that becomes every woman upon the subject of marriage. But here, to what point I may limit, or you may extend, this kind of venial deceit, may so widely differ, that it is not impossible for me to remain unacquainted with your sentiments, even after you have revealed them to me. Under this consideration, I wish once more to hear your thoughts in regard to matrimony, and to hear them before one of your own sex, that I may form an opinion by her constructions.”
To all this serious oration, Miss Milner made no other reply than by turning to Mr. Sandford, and asking, “If he was the person of her own sex, to whose judgment her guardian was to submit his own?”
“Madam,” cried Sandford angrily, “you are come hither upon serious business.”
“Any business must be serious to me, Mr. Sandford, in which you are concerned; and if you had called it sorrowful, the epithet would have suited as well.”
“Miss Milner,” said her guardian, “I did not bring you here to contend with Mr. Sandford.”
“Then why, Sir, bring him hither? for where he and I are, there must be contention.”
“I brought him hither, Madam, or I should rather say, brought you to this house, merely that he might be present on this occasion, and with his discernment relieve me from a suspicion, that my own judgment is neither able to suppress nor to confirm.”