e."

"I wish, from my soul, we could leave Bath," cried Jane. "The place, the
people are hateful to me!"

"Jane," said Emily, "rather say you hate their vices, and wish for their
amendment: but do not indiscriminately condemn a whole community for the
wrongs you have sustained from one of its members."

Jane allowed herself to be consoled, though by no means convinced, by this
effort of her sister; and they both found a relief by thus unburdening
their hearts to each other, that in future brought them more nearly
together, and was of mutual assistance in supporting them in the
promiscuous circles in which they were obliged to mix.

With all her fortitude and principle, one of the last things Emily would
have desired was an interview with Denbigh, and she was happily relieved
from the present danger of it by the departure of Lady Laura and her
brother, to go to the residence of the Colonel's sick uncle.

Both Mrs. Wilson and Emily suspected that a dread of meeting them had
detained him from his intended journey to Bath; and neither was sorry to
perceive, what they considered as latent signs of grace--a grace of which
Egerton appeared entirely to be without.

"He may yet see his errors, and make a kind and affectionate husband,"
thought Emily; and then, as the image of Denbigh rose in her imagination,
surrounded with the domestic virtues, she roused herself from the
dangerous reflection to the exercise of the duties in which she found a
refuge from unpardonable wishes.

Chapter XXXV.

Nothing material occurred for a fortnight after the departure of Lady
Laura, the Moseleys entering soberly into the amusements of the place, and
Derwent and Chatterton becoming more pointed every day in their
attentions--the one to Emily, and the other to Lady Harriet; when the
dowager received a pressing entreaty from Catherine to hasten to her at
Lisbon, where her husband had taken up his abode for a time, after much
doubt and indecision as to his place of residence. Lady Herriefield stated
generally in her letter, that she was miserable, and that without the
support of her mother she could not exist under the present grievances;
but what was the cause of those grievances, or what grounds she had for
her misery, she left unexplained.

Lady Chatterton was not wanting in maternal regard, and she promptly
determined to proceed to Portugal in the next packet. John felt inclined
for a little excursion with his bride; and out