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4 maintained a proud silence; but when she considered it was the friend of her infancy who had thus spoken, her age also claiming respect, she hesitated no longer to rescue herself from a suspicion so ill-grounded, but declared at once her real opinion and sentiments: "Sir Howard," added she, "is, I am certain, too discreet, and too much a man of discernment, to put my acceptance or refusal of him to the test, as he must doubtless be convinced that if he were to be thus tempted, mortification and disappointment only would be the result."

Mrs. Herbert would have replied, but Rosilia had disappeared.

On finding herself alone, and her real sentiments prevailing undisguised by artifice, Mrs. Herbert wondered that Rosilia could have broached an opinion so decided, a resolution so firm: "So difficult to please," thought she, "perhaps her Edward might meet with a like fate." The mother's partiality, however, placed the subject in a more favourable light, and she waited with renewed impatience her son's return to England.

It happened, however, that the bright expectations she formed, as to the fruition of her long-cherished scheme, met with a most formidable check by the General and his family removing to other lodgings, which, in the vexation she felt, she inwardly attributed to the machinations of Sir Howard.

He had taken them to look at a small but beautifully furnished house not far from the