Two months previous to Lady Elmwood’s death, Miss Woodley and Lady Matilda were taking their usual walk in some fields and lanes near to their house, when chance threw Lord Margrave in their way during a thunder storm in which they were suddenly caught; and he had the satisfaction to convey his new acquaintances to their home in his coach, safe from the fury of the elements. Grateful for the service he had rendered them, Miss Woodley and her charge, permitted him to enquire occasionally after their health, and would sometimes see him. The story of Lady Elmwood was known to Lord Margrave, and as he beheld her daughter with a passion such as he had been unused to overcome, he indulged it with the probable hope, that on the death of the mother Lord Elmwood would receive his child, and perhaps accept him as his son-in-law. Wedlock was not the plan which Lord Margrave had ever proposed to himself for happiness; but the excess of his love on this new occasion, subdued all the resolutions he had formed against the married state; and not daring to hope for the consummation of his wishes by any other means, he suffered himself to look forward to that, as his only resource. No sooner was the long expected death of Lady Elmwood arrived, than he waited with impatience to hear that Lady Matilda was sent for and acknowledged by her father; for he meant to be the first to lay before Lord Elmwood his pretensions as a suitor. But those pretensions were founded on the vague hopes of a lover only; and Miss Woodley, to whom he first declared them, said every thing possible to convince him of their fallacy. As to the object of his passion, she was not only insensible, but wholly inattentive to all that was said to her on the subject. Lady Elmwood died without ever being disturbed with it; for her daughter did not even remember his proposals so as to repeat them again, and Miss Woodley thought it prudent to conceal from her friend, every new incident which might give her cause for new anxieties. When Sandford and the ladies left the north and came to Elmwood House, so much were their thoughts employed with other ideas, that Lord Margrave did not occupy a place; and during the whole time they had been at their new abode, they had never once heard of him. He had, nevertheless, his whole mind fixed upon Lady Matilda, and had placed spies in the neighbourhood to inform him of every circumstance relating to her situation. Having imbibed an aversion to matrimony, he heard with but little regret, that there was no prospect of her ever becoming her father’s heir, while such an information gave him the hope of obtaining her, upon the terms of a mistress.