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She was eager to explain herself to Almeria before Ellen and Mr. Frederick Elmour should arrive; she therefore took her aside, and began without any preface: "My dear Miss Turnbull, here is a charming opportunity for you to do a kind, and generous, and grateful action. This poor Mrs. Henry Elmour! She has told you how she has been reduced to distress without any imprudence of hers.
Elmour's door before any one answered; at last the door was opened by a maid-servant, with a broom in her hand. "Is Miss Elmour at home?" "No, sir, she left Cheltenham this morning betimes, and we be getting the house ready for other lodgers."
On the contrary, if you find that your happiness depends upon friendship and love, and that the life we formerly led together is that which you prefer, you will return to Elmour Grove, to your friend and your lover, and your choice will not be that of romance, but of reason."
The recollection of Frederick Elmour sometimes crossed her imagination, and struck her heart; but the pang was soon over, and she settled her conscience by the reflection, that she was not, in the least degree, bound in honour to him he had set her entirely at liberty, and could not complain of her conduct.
Six hours' sleep afterwards were not sufficient to sober her completely; as her friends at Elmour Grove perceived the next morning she neither talked, looked, nor moved like herself, though she was perfectly unconscious that in this delirium of vanity and affectation she was an object of pity and disgust to the man she loved.
Our heroine hesitated. Lady Stock smiled, and said, she saw Miss Turnbull was terribly afraid of these Elmours; that for her part, she was the last person in the world to break through old connexions; but that really some people ought to consider that other people cannot always live as they do; that one style of life was fit for one style of fortune, and one for another; and that it would look very strange to the world, if an heiress with two hundred thousand pounds fortune, who if she produced herself might be in the first circles in town, were to be boxed up at Elmour Grove, and precluded from all advantages and offers that she might of course expect.
Elmour; and when she heard that he was confined to his bed, she regretted most excessively that she could not see him; but a few seconds afterwards, with a suitable change of voice and countenance, she made an easy transition to the praise of a new dress of Lady Bradstone's invention.
She instantly named her friend Mr. Elmour. Sir Thomas insinuated that old Mr. Elmour, though undoubtedly a most unexceptionable character, was not exactly the most eligible person for a guardian to a young lady, whose large fortune entitled her to live in a fashionable style. That if it was Miss Turnbull's intention to fix in the country, Mr.
Almeria one day declared, that she should wish to pass all the days of her life at Elmour Grove, without seeing any other human creatures but her friend and her friend's father. "Your imagination deceives you, my dear Almeria," said Ellen, smiling.
A few days after this visit, Miss Turnbull received the following note from Miss Elmour: "MY DEAR ALMERIA, "If you still wish that I should treat you as a friend, show me that you do, and you will find my affection unaltered.
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