returning at eight o'clock the next morning. He obeyed her orders; but, the next morning, heard, that she had gone on, over night, in a hired chaise, towards Portsmouth; charging no one to let him know it. This was all the account that he was able to give; except that, when he had asked whether his mistress would not be angry at his staying out all night, Miss Joddrel had answered, 'O, Ellis will let her know that she must not expect me back.'

Selina, who related this, was told to fetch Ellis instantly.

Ellis descended with the severest pain, from the cruel want of reflection in Elinor, which exposed her to an examination that, though she felt herself bound to evade, it must seem inexcuseable not to satisfy.

Mrs Maple and the two gentlemen were at the breakfast-table. Harleigh would not even try to command himself to sit still, when he found that Ellis was forced to stand: and even Ireton, though he did[Pg 187] not move, kept not his place from any intentional disrespect; for he would have thought himself completely old-fashioned, had he put himself out of his way, though for a person of the highest distinction.

[Pg 187]

'How comes it, Mistress Ellis,' said Mrs Maple, 'that you had a message for me last night, from my niece, and that you never delivered it?'

Ellis, confounded, tried vainly to offer some apology.

Mrs Maple rose still more peremptorily in her demands, mingling the haughtiest menaces with the most imperious interrogations; attacking her as an accomplice in the clandestine scheme of Elinor; and accusing her of favouring disobedience and disorder, for some sinister purposes of her own.

Ireton scrupled not to speak in her favour; and Selina eagerly echoed all that he advanced: but, Harleigh, though trembling with indignant impatience to defend her, feared, in the present state of things, that to become her advocate might rather injure than support her; and constrained himself to be silent.

A succession of categorical enquiries, forced, at length, an avowal from Ellis, that her commission had been given to her in a letter. Mrs Maple, then, in the most authoritative manner, insisted upon reading it immediately.

Against the justice of this desire there was no appeal; yet how comply with it? The secret of Harleigh, with regard to herself, was included in that of 

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