My mother accosted her with saying, Miss Burchell, I have something to tell you, that I believe will give you pleasure. The unhappy young woman lifted up her melancholy eyes; and, shaking her head, answered, _That_, I believe, Madam, is now impossible. Your aunt is married, said my mother, but not to Mr Faulkland; and, what is more, there has never any thing passed between them that need be a bar to you, if he could be brought to consider you as he ought. Miss Burchell looked amazed; then turned her eyes from my mother to me, as if for an explanation. My mother desired me to acquaint her with the history at large of Mr Faulkland's proceedings; I did so, and took care not to omit the tender manner in which he had mentioned her in one of his letters. She dropped some tears at the recital; and then, turning to my mother, My dear good Madam, you have snatched me from despair by this discovery: I was overwhelmed; I think I could not have got the better of my grief: a faint ray of glimmering hope is once more let in upon me. Mr Faulkland may _yet_ be mine without a crime; or, if he is not, I shall at least have the satisfaction to think him not so abandoned as he appeared to me an hour ago. Oh! worthy and lovely Mrs Arnold! said she, addressing herself to me, you see how Mr Faulkland reveres you: oh! that you would but engage in my behalf! _you_ can influence his heart; _you_ can guide his reason; _you_ are his fate! Her fine eyes, which she fixed on me, filled with persuasive eloquence, let me into the whole of her meaning, and conveyed more to me than it was in the power of words to do. I understand you, dear Madam, said I; and it grieves my heart to think that I cannot, must not interest myself for you in the manner I would most ardently undertake to do, if there were not such obstacles in my way as it is impossible for me to get over. Mr Faulkland, you see, is free from the guilt we all feared he had plunged himself into: he is full of remorse for the injury he did you, and I dare believe retains in his heart a tender sense of your merit: he is still free; nay, he has declared his intention of continuing so. These circumstances give large room for hope: your unobjectionable conduct, joined to paternal affection, may still bring about that wished-for, happy event; but this must be left to time, and the workings of his own heart. You know Mr Faulkland is, in his natural temper, impatient of restraint; he is but a very young man, and has a few of those levities which a little more settled age infallibly will correct, where a good heart and a good understanding are united. Pardon me if I add, that Mr Faulkland is not ungenerous, however blameable he may have been in regard to you. All these circumstances considered, I say, may warrant your indulging a hope, that he will at last be brought to make you the reparation, which is mine and my mother's wish as much as your own. Ah! Madam, said she, but Mr Faulkland is a great way from me: the