her hands; nor yet bear to suffer Harleigh, now the address had been seen, to leave it still in her possession: hesitating, abashed, she turned from one to the other, with looks at Lord Melbury that seemed appealing for forbearance; and to Harleigh with down-cast eyes, that had not force to encounter his, but that were expressive of distress, timidity, and fear of misconstruction.

[Pg 576]

This pause, while it astonished and perplexed Lord Melbury, gave rise, in Harleigh, to the most flattering emotions. Her disturbance was, indeed, visible, and cruelly painful to him; but, since their meeting in the church-yard, the severity of her reserve had seemed shaken, beyond her power, evident as were her struggles, to call back its original firmness. The more exquisitely he felt himself bewitched by this observation, the more fondly he desired to spare her delicacy, by concealing, though not repressing his hopes; but his eyes, less under his controul than his words, air, or address, spoke a language not to be doubted of tenderness, and sparkled with lustrous happiness, Juliet felt their beams too powerfully to mistake, or even to sustain them. Her head dropt, her eye-lids nearly closed; blushing shame tingled in her cheeks, and apprehension and perturbation trembled in every limb.

Perceiving, and adoring, her inability to find utterance, Harleigh, with subdued rapture, yet in a tone that spoke of his feelings to be, at length, in harmony with all his wishes, was gently beginning an entreaty that she would adjourn this little dispute to another day, when the words, 'Well! if here i'n't the very person we were talking off!' striking his ears, he looked round, and saw Miss Bydel, accompanied by Mr Giles Arbe; whose approach had been unheeded by them all, from the deep interest which had concentrated their attention to themselves.

'Why, Mrs Ellis,' she continued, 'why what are you doing here? I should like to know that. I've just had a smart battle about you with my good friend, Mr Giles. He will needs have it, that you paid all your debts from a hoard that you had by you, of your own; though I have told him I dare say an hundred times, at the least, I must needs be a better judge, having been paid myself, for my own share, by that cross-grained Baronet, who's been such a good friend to you.'

The sensations of Juliet underwent now another change, though shame was still predominant; her fears of exciting the expectations she sought to annul in Harleigh, were superseded by a terrour yet more momentous, of giving ground for suspicion, not alone to himself,[Pg 577] but 

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