“I am sorry any body should have given you this piece of information, because it was a task, in executing which, I had promised myself extreme satisfaction—but from the fear that your health was not yet strong enough to support, without some danger, the burthen of hopes which I knew would, upon this occasion, press upon you, I deferred my communication and it has been anticipated. Yet, as you seem in doubt as to the reality of what you have been told, perhaps this confirmation of it may fall very little short of the first news; especially when it is enforced by my request, that you will come to us, as soon as you can with propriety leave Lady Luneham.
“Come, my dear Miss Milner, and find in your once rigid monitor a faithful confidante. I will no longer threaten to disclose a secret you have trusted me with, but leave it to the wisdom, or sensibility of his heart, (who is now to penetrate into the hearts of our sex, in search of one that may beat in unison with his own) to find it out. I no longer condemn, but congratulate you on your passion; and will assist you with all my advice and my earnest wishes, that it may obtain a return.”
This letter was another of those excruciating pleasures, that almost reduced Miss Milner to the grave. Her appetite forsook her; and she vainly endeavoured, for several nights, to close her eyes. She thought so much upon the prospect of accomplishing her wishes, that she could admit no other idea; nor even invent one probable excuse for leaving Lady Luneham before the appointed time, which was then at the distance of two months. She wrote to Miss Woodley to beg her contrivance, to reproach her for keeping the secret so long from her, and to thank her for having revealed it in so kind a manner at last. She begged also to be acquainted how Mr. Dorriforth (for still she called him by that name) spoke and thought of this sudden change in his destiny.
Miss Woodley’s reply was a summons for her to town upon some pretended business, which she avoided explaining, but which entirely silenced Lady Luneham’s entreaties for her stay.
To her question concerning Lord Elmwood she answered, “It is a subject on which he seldom speaks—he appears just the same he ever did, nor could you by any part of his conduct, conceive that any such change had taken place.” Miss Milner exclaimed to herself, “I am glad he is not altered—if his words, looks, or manners, were any thing different from what they formerly were, I should not like him so well.” And just the reverse would have been the case, had Miss Woodley sent her word he was changed. The day for her leaving Bath was fixed; she expected it with rapture, but before its arrival, sunk under the care of expectation; and when it came, was so much indisposed, as to be obliged to defer her journey for a week.
At length she found herself in London—in the house of her guardian—and that guardian no longer bound to a single life, but enjoined to marry. He appeared in her eyes, as in Miss Woodley’s, the same as ever; or perhaps more endearing than ever, as it was the first time she had beheld him with hope. Mr. Sandford did not appear the same; yet he was in reality as surly and as disrespectful in his behaviour to her as usual; but she did not observe, or she did not feel his morose temper as heretofore—he seemed amiable, mild, and gentle; at least this was the happy medium through which her self-complacent mind began to see him; for good humour, like the jaundice, makes every one of its own complexion.
CHAPTER III.
Lord Elmwood was preparing to go abroad, for the purpose of receiving in form, the dispensation from his vows; it was, however, a subject he seemed carefully to avoid speaking upon; and when by any accident he was obliged to mention it, it was without any marks either of satisfaction or concern.
Miss Milner’s pride began to be alarmed. While he was Mr. Dorriforth, and confined to a single life, his indifference to her charms was rather an honourable than a reproachful trait in his character, and in reality, she admired him for the insensibility. But on the eve of being at liberty, and on the eve of making his choice, she was offended that choice was not immediately fixed upon her. She had been accustomed to receive the devotion of every man who saw her, and not to obtain it of the man from whom, of all others, she most wished it, was cruelly humiliating. She complained to Miss Woodley, who advised her to have patience; but that was one of the virtues in which she was the least practised.