Miss Fenton and Miss Woodley accompanied her part of the journey, about thirty miles, where they were met by Sir Harry and Lady Luneham. Here was a parting nearly as affecting as that between her and her guardian. Miss Woodley, who for several weeks had treated her friend with a rigidness she herself hardly supposed was in her nature, now bewailed that she had done so; implored her forgiveness; promised to correspond with her punctually, and to omit no opportunity of giving her every consolation short of cherishing her fatal passion—but in that, and that only, was the heart of Miss Milner to be consoled. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. A SIMPLE STORY, IN FOUR VOLUMES, BY MRS. INCHBALD. VOL. II. _THE FOURTH EDITION._ LONDON: Printed for G. G. and J. ROBINSON, Paternoster Row. 1799. A SIMPLE STORY CHAPTER I. When Miss Milner arrived at Bath, she thought it the most altered place she had ever seen—she was mistaken—it was herself that was changed. The walks were melancholy, the company insipid, the ball-room fatiguing—for, she had left behind all that could charm or please her. Though she found herself much less happy than when she was at Bath before, yet she felt, that she would not, even to enjoy all that past happiness, be again reduced to the being she was at that period. Thus does the lover consider the extinction of his passion with the same horror as the libertine looks upon annihilation; the one would rather live hereafter, though in all the tortures described as constituting his future state, than cease to exist; so, there are no tortures which a lover would not suffer, rather than cease to love. In the wide prospect of sadness before her, Miss Milner’s fancy caught hold of the only comfort which presented itself; and this, faint as it was, in the total absence of every other, her imagination painted to her as excessive. The comfort was a letter from Miss Woodley—a letter, in which the subject of her love would most assuredly be mentioned, and in whatever terms, it would still be the means of delight. A letter arrived—she devoured it with her eyes. The post mark denoting from whence it came, the name of “Milner Lodge” written on the top, were all sources of pleasure—and she read slowly every line it contained, to procrastinate the pleasing expectation she enjoyed, till she should arrive at the name of Dorriforth. At last, her impatient eye caught the word, three lines beyond the place she was reading—irresistibly, she skipped over those lines, and fixed on the point to which she was attracted.