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 "now ready for the enterprize. One equally able and willing to claim the Bishop, and to give undoubted security for the six thousand pounds. Can you form any notion who such a man may be?"

He looked at her gaily, yet with a scrutiny that made her blush. One person only could occur to her; but occurred with an alarming sense of impropriety in allowing him such an employment, that instantly damped her high delight. She dropt her eyes; an unrepressed sigh broke from her heart; but secret consciousness hushed all enquiry into the truth of her conjecture.

In silence, too, for a moment, Lord Melbury contemplated her; struck with her sudden sadness, and uncertain to what it might be attributed. Affectionately, then, taking her hand, "I must come," he cried, "to the point, or my messenger will lose his patience. Proposals of marriage the most honourable have been made to me; such, my dear sister, as merit