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224 the time in which I am at work for you. Miramillia, extremely pleased at ethe [sic] grant of her request, answered this compliment only with a smile and bow, and returned with her to the company, having obtained her promise of beginning the work the next day.

Three days had Miramillia past in this house, in which time both Stenoclea, and Armuthi her husband, seemed to study nothing so much as to divert her melancholy; but all the feats and sports their kindness invented, afforded but a small portion of satisfaction, when compared with that she conceived, at seeing this lady busily employed in that task, which so many had refused to undertake, and from which she had a greater hope than she would make show of, of obtaining her desires, and once more embracing her beloved son. It was now mere than half accomplished, when Armuthi being abroad, and the two ladies sitting together conversing on ordinary affairs, a servant, with grief and confusion visible in his face, entreated to speak in private to Stenoclea, who trembling, as if fearing some expected ill, bade him follow her into another room. Stenoclea returned not to Miramillia, till she had heard a great noise below stairs, and a strange confusion of voices, which now gave this unsatisfied mother sufficient cause to apprehend, that something had fallen out which would render this lady also incapable of doing her the service she required. As she was thus reflecting and lamenting the misfortunes of others as well as herself, Stenoclea, with streaming eyes, and all the symptoms of grief, appeared: Oh! Miramillia, cried she, it is now no longer in my power to impose on you: those fears which made me ever incapable of doing you the service you required, though I concealed them, in hopes to put an end to so fruitless an enquiry, are now come to pass, and I must now be known to be the wretch I am; fain would I have deceived you into an opinion of my happiness, by shewing you how ineffectual the performance of what you asked would prove, to prevent you