"But, my dear Lady Di., indeed you should not let this affair prey so continually upon your spirits," said Miss Burrage, in the condoling tone of a humble companion--"you really have almost fretted yourself into a nervous fever. I was in hopes that change of air, and change of scene, would have done every thing for you, or I never would have consented to your leaving London; for you know your ladyship's always better in London than any where else. And I'm sure your ladyship has thought and talked of nothing but this sad affair since you came to Clifton." "I confess," said Lady Diana Chillingworth, "I deserve the reproaches of my friends for giving way to my sensibility, as I do, upon this occasion: but I own I cannot help it.--Oh, what will the world say! What will the world say!--The world will lay all the blame upon _me_; yet I'm sure I'm the last, the very last person that ought to be blamed." "Assuredly," replied Miss Burrage, "nobody can blame your ladyship; and nobody will, I am persuaded. The blame will all be thrown, where it ought to be, upon the young lady herself." "If I could but be convinced of that," said her ladyship, in a tone of great feeling; "such a young creature, scarcely sixteen, to take such a step!--I am sure I wish to Heaven her father had never made me her guardian. I confess, I was most exceedingly imprudent, out of regard to her family, to take under my protection such a self-willed, unaccountable, romantic girl. Indeed, my dear," continued Lady Diana Chillingworth, turning to her sister, Lady Frances Somerset, "it was you that misled me. You remember you used to tell me, that Anne Warwick had such great abilities!"-- "That I thought it a pity they had not been well directed," said Lady Frances. "And such generosity of temper, and such warm affections!" said Lady Di.-- "That I regretted their not having been properly cultivated." "I confess, Miss Warwick was never a great favourite of mine," said Miss Barrage; "but now that she has lost her best friend--" "She is likely to find a great number of enemies," said Lady Frances. "She has been her own enemy, poor girl! I am sure I pity her," replied Miss Burrage; "but, at the same time, I must say, that ever since she came to my Lady Di. Chillingworth's, she has had good advice enough." "Too much, perhaps; which is worse than too little," thought Lady Frances. "Advice!" repeated Lady Di. Chillingworth: "why, as to that, my conscience, I own, acquits me there; for, to be sure, no young person, of her age, or of any age, had ever more advice, or more good advice, than Miss Warwick had from me; I thought it my duty to advise her, and advise her I did from morning till night, as Miss Burrage very well knows, and will do me the justice, I hope, to say in all companies."