Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 2).pdf/60

 and how long you think to live there?—and what is the true cause of your going there?—For there must certainly be some reason."

Ellis, who now found that she must either answer Miss Bydel or forego her whole scheme, from the determined backwardness of Miss Arbe to take any active part in her affairs, said, "My past history, Madam, it would be useless to hear—and impossible for me to relate: my present plan must depend upon a charitable construction of my unavoidable, indispensable silence; without which it would be madness to hope for any favour, any recommendation, that may give the smallest chance of success to my attempt."

"And what is your attempt?" cried Miss Bydel; "for if that's a secret too, I can't find out how you're to do it."

"On the contrary," she answered, "I am well aware that I must publish, or relinquish it; and immediately I