Isabella’s half-joking speech recalled it all to her; she felt betrayed, discovered, and her confusion knew no bounds. Isabella, surprised at the effect she had produced, in a moment recollected the suspicions she had once entertained, but she was just smarting under the mortification of finding she had over-calculated her complete influence over her husband, of finding that Fanny was right in her advice, and of feeling she deserved her rebuke, and she exclaimed,— “Well, I never saw such a guilty face.” Fanny was thunder-struck, bewildered—she burst into tears, and, hiding her face with her hands, she exclaimed— “Spare me, Isabella! spare me! if you have discovered my secret, spare me!” and, throwing herself on her knees, she hid her face in Isabella’s lap. “Yes, I have loved your husband, but I loved him before you thought of him, and I have struggled and combated, and fought to subdue my feelings; indeed I have. And I have loved him with a holy love,”—and she lifted up her tearful face with an expression of solemn grief and earnestness which was almost sublime: “Yes! I call Heaven to witness, never, for a moment, have I ceased to wish for your happiness, to pray for it, to use every endeavour to forward it. Is it not true? Isabella, I appeal to yourself?” “Get up, my dear Fanny! For Heaven’s sake! I had not an idea—I did not mean”—and Isabella burst into tears also. She remembered, what she had almost forgotten, how she had once believed him attached to Fanny; she remembered, what she had often persuaded herself was not so, how she had used every art in her power to wean him from her, and she felt almost as guilty as Fanny did. She had never intended to inflict such keen anguish on any one, and she was grieved to see what she had done. Had there been any thing to excite jealousy, or that might have touched her vanity, perhaps she would not have felt so amiably; but she was perfectly certain poor Fanny’s love was unrequited, and there was nothing mortifying in her husband’s having inspired so deep and fervent an attachment. Moreover, an uncontrolled burst of feeling, in a person habitually placid and reserved, is in itself almost an awful sight. The two friends stood mutually abashed before each other, when Fanny exclaimed,— “Do not utterly despise me, Isabella. Oh! if you knew half what I feel at this moment you would pity me. And I have been venturing to lecture you, to teach you your duty! But, indeed, I spoke from pure motives, indeed—though—I have—loved him”—and she again blushed crimson, her cheeks, her temples, her neck, at hearing herself speak words which, till that day, had never found utterance from her lips, “it was for your sake, as well as for his——” “Dearest Fanny,” interrupted Isabella, “do you think I doubt your motives? No! they are pure and excellent as your own innocent heart. I spoke in jest—you so entirely succeeded in concealing your feelings——”