That sentiment, however, by no means gathered strength when she took courage to raise her eyes to the plain little elderly person to whom she was introduced, and heard herself addressed in the accents of cheerful familiarity. Laura, with modest dignity, made known her name and situation. She spoke of her mother's death, and the tears trickled from her eyes--of her father's, and in venting the natural eloquence of grief, she forgot that she came to interest a stranger. Lady Pelham seemed affected; she held her handkerchief to her eyes, and remained in that attitude for some time after Laura had recovered self-possession. Then, throwing her arms round her lovely niece, she affectionately acknowledged the relationship, adding, 'Your resemblance to my poor sister cannot be overlooked, and yet in saying so, I am far from paying you a compliment.' After shewing Lady Pelham her own letter, and mentioning such circumstances as tended to confirm her identity, Laura proceeded to detail her plans, to which her Ladyship listened with apparent interest. She inquired into Laura's accomplishments, and seemed pondering the probability of employing them with advantage to the possessor. After a few moments silence, she said, 'That short as their acquaintance had been, she thought she could perceive that Laura had too much sensibility for a dependent situation. But we shall talk of that hereafter,' continued she. 'At present, your spirits are too weak for the society of strangers;--and mine,' added her Ladyship, with a sigh, 'are not much more buoyant than your own.' Laura looked up with the kindly interest which, whether she herself were joyful or in sadness, sorrow could always command with her; and her aunt answered her glance of inquiry, by relating, that her only daughter and heiress, had eloped from her a few days before, with an artful young fellow without family or fortune. 'She deceived me by a train of the basest artifices,' said Lady Pelham, 'though she might have known that her happiness was my chief concern; and that, to secure it, I might have been brought to consent to any thing. Yet with the closest secrecy she misled--with the most unfeeling coldness left me. Her disobedience I might have forgiven--her deceit I never can; or, if as a Christian I forgive, I never, never can forget it.' Lady Pelham had talked herself out of breath; and Laura, not quite understanding this kind of Christian forgiveness, was silent, because she did not well know what to say. She felt, however, compassion for a parent, deserted by her only child, and the feeling was legible in a countenance peculiarly fitted for every tender expression.