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Rh and benevolence, she offered up a silent prayer for the happiness of Douglas and his future partner.

Mrs. Herbert was rejoiced to find that Rosilia was herself again. She had been made perfectly well acquainted with the attachment and pretensions of Douglas to Rosilia, but as he had embarked for India her rejected suitor, she had drawn the inference that his pretensions were altogether indifferent to her. But whether right or wrong in her conjectures, she had with much eagerness and pleasure delivered the account of his intended marriage,—hoping also to insinuate by degrees the merits and claims of her son; that favourite wish, so long cherished, having acquired a renewal of strength from Rosilia then being an inmate of her house.

The entrance of Oriana, proposing a walk, put an end to Mrs. Herbert's further communication. Philimore was in waiting to attend them, in company with an acquaintance, Miss Morris, who was a maiden lady of about forty years of age, of great respectability; she was one in whose society Mrs. De Brooke supposed she could entrust her daughters. Mistaken confidence! Alas! she little conceived that, though without any apparent levity or disregard to the world's censure, yet from an