WHEN they arrived at Mrs. Lawson’s, Sophia, who little expected such a visit, had wandered, as usual, in the wood, accompanied with Dolly: Mrs. Lawson immediately sent Fanny in search of her; and Harriot, expressing an impatience to see her sister, went along with her.
They found Sophia sitting under an oak, with Mrs. Gibbons on one side of her, and Dolly on the other; for the old gentlewoman was prevailed upon by Sophia to endure the company of the innocent girl, who had never offended her; and Dolly, instructed by her lovely friend, made good use of these opportunities to insinuate herself into her favour.
William leaned on a branch close by Sophia, to whom he addressed his discourse, while his eyes often stole tender glances at his beloved Dolly. Harriot, when she approached, cried out affectedly, ‘Upon my word, sister, you have a brilliant assembly here; I did not expect to find you in such good company.’
Sophia, surprised to see her sister, ran hastily to meet her, and embracing her kindly, enquired with a sweet anxiety for her mother, and whether she also had been so good to visit her. Harriot scarce answered her question; her attention was all fixed upon William: so handsome a youth seemed worthy to feel the influence of her charms; and all the artillery of her eyes was instantly levelled against him. Having returned his respectful bow with an affected courtesy, and the fashionable toss of the head, she deigned to take some little notice of Mrs. Gibbons, and honoured Dolly with a careless glance, whose amiable figure, however, attracted a second look; and after examining her with an inquisitive eye, she turned away with a little expression of scorn in her countenance, and again attacked William, practising a thousand airs to strike him; all which he beheld with the utmost indifference.
Sophia, being impatient to see her mother, took leave of Mrs. Gibbons; but Harriot, who had a new conquest in view, was unwilling to go so soon, professing herself inchanted with the place, and declaring she would turn shepherdess.
Sophia told her, smiling, that she was sure that that sort of life would not please her.
‘Oh! how can you think so, cried Harriot, is not the dress excessively becoming? then love in these woods is so tender and sincere! I will engage there is not a nymph in this hamlet whose frown would not drive her lover to despair: own the truth now, said she, turning with a lively air to William, are you not violently in love?’
The youth bowed, blushed, and sighed; and not daring to look at his mistress, he suffered his eyes, full as they were of tender expression, to direct their glances towards Sophia. ‘I am proud to own, madam, said he to Harriot, that I have a heart capable of the most ardent passion.’
“And mighty constant too! no doubt,” interupted Harriot, with a malignant sneer; for she had observed the sigh and the look, and was ready to burst with vexation and disappointment, to find her conquest obstructed already by her sister, as she supposed; and being now as impatient, as she was before unwilling to be gone, ‘Come, Sophy, said she, taking her under the arm, my mamma will take it ill that you make no more haste to see her, for we shall return to town immediately.’
“Sure you will stay one night,” said Sophia.
“Oh not for the world!” exclaimed Harriot affectedly; ‘How can you imagine I would stay so long in an odious village, to be rusticated into aukwardness, pursued she, with a spiteful laugh, and ashamed to shew my face in any assemby in town afterwards.’ Saying this, she courtesied disdainfully to Mrs. Gibbons and her nephew, and tripped away, pulling her sister away with her.
Dolly joined the two ladies, but walked by the side of Sophia, not aiming at any familiarity with the insolent and affected Harriot; and as they pursued their way home, she had the mortification to hear her lover ridiculed and despised by the disappointed coquet, who supposed she mortified her sister by the contempt she expressed for a man who had so little taste as to like her.
Sophia, as well in compassion to poor Dolly, who suffered greatly upon this occasion, as in justice to the amiable youth, defended him warmly, which drew some coarse raillery upon her from Harriot.
When they came near to Mr. Lawson’s house, the sight of Sir Charles’s chariot threw her into a fit of trembling; Harriot perceived it, and willing to undeceive her, if she hoped to find the young baronet there, ‘I am charged with Sir Charles’s compliments, to you, said she, he insisted upon our using his chariot for this little excursion; my mamma and I would fain have persuaded him to accompany us, but he pleaded an engagement, and would not come.’
Dolly now looked with great concern upon her fair friend, who suppressing a sigh, asked if Sir Charles was quite recovered.
‘I do not know that he has been ill, replied Harriot. Indeed when he came from Bath, the fatigue he had endured with his sick uncle, whom he had sat up with several nights before he died, made him look a little pale and thin; but he is now extremely well, and more gay than ever: and it is well he is so, pursued she, for we have so much of his company, that if he was not entertaining, we should find him very troublesome.’
All this was daggers to the heart of poor Sophia: those pleasing ideas which she had indulged upon reading her mother’s letter, that represented Sir Charles as having suffered in his health, from his endeavours to vanquish his passion for her, all vanished, and left in their room a sad conviction that she was become wholly indifferent to him.
She might indeed, knowing her sister’s malice, have attributed what she said to artifice; but her manner of accounting for the alteration in Sir Charles’s looks, which her fond fancy had dwelt upon so much, was so natural and so full of probability, that she could suspect no artifice there.
Every thing Harriot said was confirmed by facts which left no room for doubt: his assiduity to Harriot, his neglect of her, appeared but too plain. Did he not lend his chariot for a visit in which he would not share? did he not send his compliments in a manner that shewed his heart was so much at ease, that he felt not even any resentment for her leaving him? could there be stronger proofs of indifference than these?
Such were her thoughts, and her heart was so oppressed by this sudden and unexpected shock, that it was with difficulty she restrained her tears. Dolly, who looked at her with tender anxiety, and saw her colour come and go, and her charming eyes bent on the ground, as if she feared to look up, lest they should betray her anguish, cast many an angry glance at her envious sister, and wished her a thousand miles off.
Sophia having a little recovered herself, hastened towards her mother, who with a face of ignorant wonder was following Mrs. Lawson about her little farm, asking a thousand questions, without heeding the answers she received. Sophia approaching, paid her duty to her with her usual tenderness and respect, which Mrs. Darnley returned with slightly kissing her cheek, telling her that she thought her complexion was greatly improved, and appealed to Harriot for the truth of her observation.
Harriot answered, ‘That indeed she could not flatter her sister so much, as to say she thought so; for if there was any alteration, it was rather for the worse.’
Sophia, without attending to this difference of opinion, with regard to her complexion, was only sollicitous to know if her mother had been well; and while she was making some tender enquiries concerning her health, Mrs. Darnley, who never consulted either time or place, suddenly interupted her to draw her aside from the company, and asked her abruptly, ‘Whether she was not surprised at Sir Charles’s indifference?’
Sophia, still smarting with the pangs her sister’s discourse had given her, replied, in a tone of resentment, ‘That nothing now could surprise her with regard to Sir Charles.’
‘Why, to say the truth, Sophia, replied Mrs. Darnley, I believe he has quite forgot you; but there was a time when you might have been happy.—oh girl, girl, pursued she, kindling with anger as she spoke, you were always obstinate and conceited; what a foolish part have you played with all your wit! but I am to blame to trouble myself about you.’
Sophia now eased her loaded heart by a shower of tears. ‘It is to little purpose now, said Mrs. Darnley, to repent of your imprudent behaviour; you were too wise to take a parent’s advice, when it might have been useful: when a man of rank and fortune makes his addresses to a woman who is inferior to him in both, he expects a thousand little complacencies and attentions from her, which, without wounding her honour, may convince him that it is not to his riches she sacrifices herself.’
‘Ah, Madam, cried Sophia, that is a snare which has been fatal to many young women in my circumstances. Who sees not the advantages this gives a man whose aim is to seduce? I am persuaded these pernicious maxims are not yours, but his, for whose ungenerous purpose they are so well calculated.’
Sophia guessed truly; the young baronet had often had discourses of this sort with Mrs. Darnley, who nevertheless took it ill that her daughter should offer her such an affront as to suppose she did not understand maxims as well as Sir Charles.
Nothing is more certain than that we are never made so ridiculous by the qualities we have, as by those we affect to have. Mrs. Darnley, with all her ignorance, aspired to be thought witty: she therefore vindicated her claim to what Sophia had called maxims; no matter whether they were pernicious or not. The word maxim sounded learnedly in her ears: she told her daughter, with great asperity, that she was so conceited and vain of her own wit, that she would allow no one else to have any. Sophia found it difficult enough to appease her, but she succeeded at length, and they joined the rest of the company.
Mrs. Lawson easily prevailed upon her guests to stay that night and the following day, which, being Sunday, Harriot could not resist the temptation of displaying her charms and her fine cloaths in a country church, which was so new a triumph, that the thoughts of it kept her waking almost the whole night.
The ridiculous airs she assumed to draw the admiration of the simple villagers, who never saw any thing so fine and so gay before, and who stared at her with stupid surprise, made Sophia often blush for her: but her affected glances were chiefly directed to the beautiful youth, whose insensibility had so greatly mortified her pride: she saw his eyes constantly turned towards the pew where she sat; but she saw plainly that it was not her charms that drew them thither. She had no suspicion that Dolly was the object of his affection, and, sensible to her great grief, of her sister’s power to charm, she no longer doubted that this envied conquest was hers.
Thus disappointed, she appeared so much out of humour, and so impatient to return to town, that Mrs. Darnley, over whom her power was absolute, complied with her importunity, and set out with her for London, as soon as they returned from church; notwithstanding all the endeavours of the good curate and his wife to detain them to dinner.
Sophia was now left alone to her own melancholy reflections; this visit from her mother and sister had produced a sad reverse in her situation: hitherto hope had not quite forsaken her; the idea of being still beloved by Sir Charles lessened all her griefs, and supported her amidst the doubt and anxiety which his mysterious conduct had involved her in: his indifference, so apparent in her sister’s account of him, gave her pangs unfelt before: and never till now did she think herself unhappy; for, unperceived by herself, she had encouraged a secret hope that the passion she had inspired him with would not be easily subdued; and that perhaps all which she had thought exceptionable in his conduct proceeded not from a settled design to the prejudice of her honour, but from that irresolution and slowness with which a man, too sensible of his superiority in birth and fortune, proceeds in an affair of marriage, where he has no obstacles to fear, and where every thing depends upon himself.
She now perceived the necessity of banishing Sir Charles from her heart; but at the same time, she perceived all the difficulty of the task. Though ashamed of her tears, she wept, and passionately exclaimed against her own weakness, which had kept her in a delusion so fatal to her peace. She continued the whole day in her chamber, wholly absorb’d in melancholy thoughts.
Dolly, who knew enough of her situation to guess the cause of this new affliction, was grieved to find herself excluded as well as the rest of the family; and although she ardently wished to console her, yet she durst not intrude uncalled upon her retirement. While she waited impatiently for her appearance, a visitor arrived, who she knew would be welcome to her charming friend. As soon as she perceived him, she flew with eager haste to inform Sophia, and, tapping at her door, told her in a joyful voice, that Mr. Herbert was just alighted.
Sophia, surprised at the news, instantly opened her chamber-door, and smiling tenderly upon the charming girl, to whom she excused herself for her long absence, hastened to receive the good old man, who, after some affectionate enquiries concerning her health, rallied her upon the melancholy that appeared in her countenance.
Sophia blushed and fixed her eyes on the ground, not a little surprised at his talking to her in that manner; and when with a bashful air, she looked up again, and saw a more than usual chearfulness in his eyes, her confusion encreased, and for a few moments she could not help feeling some resentment against her benefactor, for thus diverting himself with her uneasiness.
Mr. Herbert, whose thoughts were wholly employed on the pleasing news he brought, did not perceive how much his behaviour embarrassed her: to prevent his renewing a subject so disagreeable, she talked of the visit her mother and sister had made her.
Mr. Herbert asked her, ‘If they had mentioned Sir Charles, and what she thought of him now?’
‘I think of him as I ought to do, replied Sophia, with some warmth, I despise him.’
‘Be not too rash, my dear child, said Mr. Herbert; if your sister, whose malice I well know, has suggested any thing to Sir Charles’s disadvantage, be assured she deceives you; for I am convinced he not only loves you, but loves you with honour.’
Sophia, who from the first words Mr. Herbert uttered, had been in great agitation, as expecting something extraordinary, was so overwhelmed with surprise at what she heard, that her speech and colour forsaking her, she remained pale, silent, and motionless in her chair.
Mr. Herbert, perceiving how powerfully this news operated on her spirits, began to be apprehensive of the consequences, and was rising hastily to give her some assistance, when Sophia, rouzed to recollection by this motion of her venerable friend, and ashamed of the extreme sensibility she had discovered, apologised for it with a charming modesty, that greatly affected the good old man, who, if he had known in what melancholy thoughts she had passed the day, would have told her with more caution, a circumstance that raised her at once from despair to hope, and produced so great a change in her situation.
As we are never so ready to fear a disappointment as when we are nearest the completion of our wishes, Sophia, with a sweet apprehensiveness, which yet she laboured to conceal, hinted her doubts of the baronet’s sincerity; Mr. Herbert answering explicitly to these half expressed doubts, told her, that he was fully persuaded Sir Charles would act like a man of honour. “I will give you an exact account, said he to her, of what has passed between us, from which you may judge yourself of his conduct:” he then took a letter out of his pocket, and desired her to read it.
Sophia, trembling a little at the sight of Sir Charles’s hand writing, took the billet, and found it contained a message from him to Mr. Herbert, requesting in very earnest terms, the favour of an interview, and an offer to wait upon him at any hour he should appoint.
‘You may be sure, said Mr. Herbert, (receiving back the billet which Sophia gave him without speaking a word) that I did not suffer Sir Charles to come to me; hearing from the messenger that his master was at home waiting for my answer, I attended him immediately. I perceived a little embarrassment in his countenance upon my first entrance, but that soon wore off: he welcomed me with great politeness, and after thanking me for the honour I did him, in preventing his visit, he entered immediately upon the affair which had occasioned his sending to me.’
‘You have, Sir, said he, shewn so truly a paternal affection for the young lady to whom I have paid my addresses, and are so much esteemed and reverenced by her, that I think I may without any impropriety, address myself to you upon this occasion—’
Here he paused, and seemed a little perplexed. ‘To be sure, added he, I ought to have done this before; my conduct must have appeared capricious both to her and you, and indeed it was capricious,—but—’
Here he paused again, and fixed his eyes on the ground. “His frankness, pursued Mr. Herbert, pleased me greatly, and disposed me to give him a favourable attention.”
‘I cannot blame Miss Sophia, said he, for acting as she has done; my heart did homage to her virtue at the time that I suffered most from the contemptuous behaviour it suggested to her. Fain would I hope, added he sighing, that the prejudices she has conceived against me has not entirely banished me from her remembrance; the delicacy of my passion would be but ill satissfied by calling so deserving a woman my own, unless I could likewise boast a preference in her heart that left me no room to doubt my fortune had any share in determining her in my favour.’
“I know not, pursued Mr. Herbert, whether Sir Charles expected any answer to this declaration; it is certain he looked on me with a kind of anxious timidity, and stopped a moment; I continued silent, and he proceeded in this manner:” ‘I know, Miss Sophia has an understanding too solid, and a mind too noble to suffer any considerations of rank and fortune to determine her solely in an affair upon which the happiness of her life depends: she would not surely give her hand where her heart did not acknowledge a preference. ‘Tis thus I answer all those doubts which my situation, and perhaps an overstrained delicacy suggest: I am impatient to convince her of the purity of my passion; and, considering you as her friend, her guardian, and one who is in the place of a father to her, I will take no steps in this affair but such as have the sanction of your approbation; I will not even presume to visit her without your permission: be you my advocate with her, tell her I lay myself and fortune at her feet, and will receive her from your hand as the greatest blessing that heaven can bestow on me.’
‘Now, my child, pursued Mr. Herbert, looking on Sophia with a smile, how would you have me answer to this discourse? was it necessary, think you, to play off a few female artifices here, and keep Sir Charles in doubt and anxious suspence, or did the apparent openness and candor of his procedure deserve an equal degree of frankness on my part?’
‘It is not to be doubted, sir, said Sophia blushing, but that on this occasion, as on every other, you acted with the utmost prudence.’
‘I find, resumed Mr. Herbert, that you are resolved beforehand, to approve of whatever I said: well then, I told Sir Charles, that his present declaration entirely satisfied me; that being fully convinced of his sincerity, I looked upon his offer as highly honourable and advantageous to you; and that I was very sure you would have all the sense you ought to have of so generous an affection.’
‘He then begged me to set out immediately for this place, and prepare you to receive a visit from him. This request I could not possibly comply with, having business in town, which would necessarily detain me for some hours; but I promised him to go as soon as that was dispatched, which probably might be in the afternoon.’
‘He modestly asked my leave to accompany me; but this I declined, as fearing his sudden appearance, without your being previously acquainted with what had past, might occasion some perplexity and uneasiness to you; so it was agreed that he should come to-morrow.’
“To-morrow,” replied Sophia, with an emotion she was not able to suppress.
‘Yes, my child, replied the good old man, have you any objections to this?’
‘I know not, replied Sophia, with downcast eyes and a faultering accent, what I ought to do; I have been so used to consider Sir Charles’s professions in an unfavourable point of view; my heart has been so accustomed to suspect him—to guard itself against delusive hopes, perhaps I ought not to admit his visit so easily; perhaps I ought to resent his former behaviour. I own I am greatly perplexed, but I will be determined wholly by your advice.’
Mr. Herbert saw her delicate scruples, and, to favour her modesty, answered, with the authority of a guardian, ‘When Sir Charles visits you next, Miss Sophia, he comes to offer you his hand; he has asked my consent as your guardian and your friend; and, I presuming on my influence over you in both those characters, have given it freely; and how indeed, having your interest and happiness sincerely at heart, could I do otherwise? but if you think his former behaviour, in which however there were only suspicions against him, deserves to be resented, at a time when those suspicions are absolutely destroyed, you must go through with your heroism, and see him no more; for as the poet says, ‘He comes too near who comes to be denied,’ so he has offended too much who needs a pardon.’
Sophia, who felt all the force of this reasoning, answered only by a blushing silence. Mr. Herbert then told her, that Sir Charles had declared to him that he would make the same settlements on her as had been stipulated for his mother; for he added, with equal delicacy and tenderness, ‘Miss Sophia, in virtue, wit, good sense, and every female excellence, brings me an immense portion.’
“Sir Charles, pursued Mr. Herbert smiling, by a strange contradiction, which is, I suppose, always found in lovers, though he was impatient to have me with you, yet could not help detaining me to have the pleasure of talking of you: he painted to me very naturally, the uneasiness he had suffered from your supposed contempt of him: he told me, that he was at one time determined to travel, in order to efface you from his remembrance;” ‘But, (said he, rising and unlocking a cabinet, from which he took out a paper and put into my hands,) you shall judge whether amidst all my resentment I did not still love Miss Sophia; that is my will, which I ordered to be drawn up previous to my intended journey.’
“He then, to spare me the trouble of reading it all through, pointed to the place where you was mentioned, and I found he had bequeathed you an estate of four hundred pounds a year for life, and five thousand pounds to be disposed of as you pleased.”
This last circumstance touched Sophia so much that tears filled her eyes: she sighed, and turned her head aside to conceal her emotion, while Mr. Herbert, without seeming to observe it, continued to repeat to her several expressions used by Sir Charles, which shewed the greatness of his affection, and his veneration for her virtues.
‘We parted at length, pursued Mr. Herbert, extremely well satisfied with each other, and tomorrow, or next day at farthest, you may expect to see Sir Charles here; for he told me, that if he received no ill news from me, he would conclude I had prepared him a favourable reception; and, presuming on this hope, he would immediately set his lawyer to work to prepare the writings, that nothing might be left undone which could convince you of the sincerity of his affections; therefore, my dear child, set your heart at rest; and since providence has thought fit to reward your piety and virtue, receive with humble gratitude that fortune to which you are raised, and which puts it so largely in your power to do good. I will now leave you, said the good old man rising, to your own reflections; I have scarce spoke a word yet to our kind friends here, for I was so impatient to see you, that I left them very abruptly.’
Mr. Herbert had no sooner left the room, than Sophia, in an ardent ejaculation, thanked heaven for thus relieving her from her distress: but it was long ere the tumult in her mind raised by such unhoped for happy news subsided, and gave place to that calm recollection which supplied a thousand pleasing ideas, and filled her with the softest emotions of gratitude, tenderness, and joy.
She was now freed from those tormenting doubts, which made her consider her tenderness for Sir Charles as a crime, and occasioned so many painful struggles in her mind. What joy to reflect that the man she loved was worthy of her affection! how pleasing was the prospect that opened to her view; to be blest with the power of shewing her gratitude to her friends, her piety to her mother; to repay her sister’s unkindness with acts of generosity; and indulge the benevolence of her heart in relieving every distress which fell within her power to relieve!
These were the advantages which she promised herself in the change of her fortune, and for these her grateful heart lifted itself up every moment in thanks and praise to that providence that bestowed them on her.
While Sophia was thus absorb’d in thought, Dolly opened the door, and running up to her, eagerly cried, ‘Tell me true, my dear miss, has not Mr. Herbert brought you some good news? I am sure he has; I never saw him so joyful in my life, and you look glad too,’ pursued she, peering in her face with a sweet earnestness. ‘May I not ask you, Miss Darnley, what this good news is?’
‘You may, my dear, said Sophia smiling, but not now; you shall know all soon. At present I would rather talk of your affairs.’
‘Indeed I am greatly obliged to you, miss, said Dolly, for what you have done for me. Mrs. Gibbons seems almost as kind to me as ever she was, and you have talked so sensibly to my mother, that she repents of her behaviour to Mrs. Gibbons; and she likes Mr. William so well, that I am sure she would be glad to be reconciled to her.’
‘That is what I have been labouring at all this time, resumed Sophia. If Mrs. Lawson can be persuaded to make some concessions to the fantastick old gentlewoman, all may go well yet: it shall be my care to bring them together; and if my endeavours to produce a reconciliation fail, perhaps I may be able to engage a more powerful mediator in your interest.’
Sophia had Sir Charles in her thoughts, who she doubted not would readily undertake the cause of the distressed lovers, and possibly add something to her Dolly’s portion, to lessen the inequality there was between them in that point. She spoke with such a chearful confidence, that Dolly, full of hope and joy, thanked her with artless transports of gratitude that moved her even to tears.
The next day, though in expectation of seeing Sir Charles, her heart laboured with a thousand emotions; yet kindly attentive to the affairs of her friend, she resolved to make Mrs. Gibbons a visit, to prepare the way for the hoped for interview between her and Mrs. Lawson. As soon as she had disengaged herself from Mr. Herbert, she set out alone for Mrs. Gibbons’s house; but scarcely had she crossed the first field when she saw William, who was as usual, sauntering about Mr. Lawson’s grounds, in hopes of seeing his mistress.
Sophia beckoned to him, and he flew to meet her; for, next to Dolly, he thought her the most charming woman in the world; and he adored her for the goodness with which she interested herself in his and his Dolly’s happiness.
When he drew near, Sophia told him she was going to visit his aunt; the youth respectfully expressed his concern that his aunt could not have that honour; she was gone, he said, to visit a relation who lived a few miles up the country.
Sophia then told him the design upon which she was going, and the favourable disposition Mrs Lawson was in. ‘I am persuaded, said she, all might be made up, if we could but bring them together. Mrs. Lawson only wants an opportunity to repair her fault; but how shall we contrive to give her this opportunity? what expedient can we find out to overcome your aunt’s obstinacy, and prevail upon her to enter Mrs. Lawson’s door again?’
‘I know one, madam, said the youth smiling, which I think would do.’
Sophia concluding from the timidity of his look, that she was concerned in this expedient, prest him to speak freely, assuring him she would assist to the utmost of her power.
‘My aunt, madam, said he, is as you know a great observer of forms: she would not for the world fall under the censure of having failed in any part of ceremony or good breeding; now, madam, if you would be pleased to make a point of her returning your visit, and permit me to tell her that you are offended with her neglect, and that you insist upon this proof of her politeness, I am persuaded she will come.’
‘Well, said Sophia, smiling, if you are of opinion this will do, you have my consent to say whatever you think will affect her most; make me as angry and as ceremonious as you please.’
‘Nothing shall be wanting on my part to promote the success of this affair, added she, with a graver look and accent; for I believe you have a sincere affection for my young friend, and I shall not be at rest till I see you both happy.’
The youth, in whose breast the sweet benevolence of her looks and words excited the strongest transports of gratitude, not able to find words to express his sense of her goodness, suddenly threw himself at her feet, and kissed her hand with a mixture of tenderness and awe.
Sophia, smiling at this sally, stepped back a little; upon which he rose up, and with a graceful confusion paid her his thanks: she again repeated her promise of serving him, and took leave: he bowed low, following her for some time with his eyes, and sent a thousand kind wishes after her.
Sophia, at her return, acquainted Dolly with what had passed between her lover and her, and filled her with pleasing hopes of the success of his scheme: but now the day wore away, she was in continual expectation of seeing Sir Charles; her heart throbbed with anxiety; every noise she heard, sounded like the trampling of horses, and then a universal trembling would seize her. She dreaded, yet wished for his arrival; and at every disappointment she sighed, and felt her heart sink with tender despondency.
Such were her agitations, till the evening being far advanced, she gave up all hope of his coming that night. Mr. Herbert had assigned a very pleasing reason for his visit being deferred till the next day; and, her mind growing more composed, she went in search of the good old man, who, Dolly told her, was gone to walk in the meadows behind the house; for she had kept herself out of his sight as much as possible, unwilling that he should observe her emotions. She saw him at a distance, walking with a slow pace, and she perceived he saw her; but to her great surprise, she saw him cross into another field, and take a quite contrary way, on purpose to avoid her.
Struck with this little accident, she stood still and paused a few moments: she felt herself strangely alarmed, yet wondered why she should be so, and took her way back again to the house with sad forebodings on her mind.
[To be continued.]
PROCEED TO THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE HISTORY OF HARRIOT AND SOPHIA >>
