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134 object is to be met with, there, without ceremony, regardless of time or place, they force their way. I heard you shriek, my dear girl, and in the alarm I felt for you, forgetting my own illness, ran immediately to your assistance. Melliphant, in commending you to my care, sent for a coach, and was obliged to depart with his troublesome visitors."

Inwardly thanking the Supreme, for such an apparently divine interposition in her favour, Rosilia exclaimed, "Is then Mr. Melliphant imprisoned for debt?"

"So it appears," returned Mrs. Belmour. "I was really totally ignorant that he had cause for apprehending such an event; and I can but believe this unpleasant circumstance to arise from some little embarrassment springing from the generosity of his disposition, and from which, doubtless, his friends will soon liberate him."

The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. De Brooke. The bloom which had so recently faded from Rosilia's cheek, had begun to resume its seat, although the languor of her looks and air could not escape the eye of maternal solicitude; which Mrs. Belmour perceiving, related the circumstance, such as it appeared to her, and which, as the silence of Rosilia confirmed, Mrs, De Brooke did not doubt was the real statement.