eing over, after some minutes passed in
general conversation, the carriages were again ordered; and, bidding
farewell to the relations who had accompanied her, Miss Milner, her
guardian, and Miss Woodley departed for town; the two ladies in Miss
Milner's carriage, and Dorriforth in that in which he came.

Miss Woodley, as they rode along, made no attempts to ingratiate herself
with Miss Milner; though, perhaps, such an honour might constitute one
of her first wishes--she behaved to her but as she constantly behaved to
every other human creature--that, was sufficient to gain the esteem of a
person possessed of an understanding equal to Miss Milner's--she had
penetration to discover Miss Woodley's unaffected worth, and was soon
induced to reward it with the warmest friendship.

CHAPTER IV.

After a night's rest in London, less violently impressed with the loss
of her father, reconciled, if not already attached to her new
acquaintance, her thoughts pleasingly occupied with the reflection that
she was in that gay metropolis--a wild and rapturous picture of which her
active fancy had often formed--Miss Milner waked from a peaceful and
refreshing sleep, with much of that vivacity, and with all those airy
charms, which for a while had yielded their transcendent power to the
weaker influence of her filial sorrow.

Beautiful as she had appeared to Miss Woodley and to Dorriforth on the
preceding day, when she joined them this morning at breakfast,
re-possessed of her lively elegance and dignified simplicity, they gazed
at her, and at each other alternately, with astonishment!--and Mrs.
Horton, as she sat at the head of her tea-table, felt herself but as a
menial servant: such command has beauty if united with sense and virtue.
In Miss Milner it was so united. Yet let not our over-scrupulous readers
be misled, and extend their idea of her virtue so as to magnify it
beyond that which frail mortals commonly possess; nor must they cavil,
if, on a nearer view, they find it less--but let them consider, that if
she had more faults than generally belong to others, she had likewise
more temptations.

From her infancy she had been indulged in all her wishes to the extreme
of folly, and started habitually at the unpleasant voice of control. She
was beautiful; she had been too frequently told the high value of that
beauty, and thought every moment passed in wasteful idleness during
which she was not gaining some new conquest. Sh