To do our heroine justice, she here interrupted Lady Stock with more eagerness than strict politeness admitted, and positively declared that her friends never for one moment wished to confine her at Elmour Grove. “On the contrary,” said she, “they urged me to go into company, and to see something of the world, before I--” marry, she was going to say--but paused. Lady Stock waited for the finishing word; but when it did not come, she went on just as if it had been pronounced. “The Elmours do vastly right and proper to talk to you in this style, for they would be very much blamed in the world if they acted otherwise. You know, young Elmour has his fortune to make--very clever certainly he is, and will rise--no doubt--I’m told--in his profession--but all that is not the same as a ready-made fortune, which an heiress like you has a right to expect. But do not let me annoy you with my reflections. Perhaps there is nothing in the report--I really only repeat what I hear every body say. In what every body says, you know there must be something. I positively think you ought to show, in justice to the Elmours themselves, that you are at liberty, and that they do not want to monopolize you--in this unaccountable sort of way.” To this last argument our heroine yielded, or to this she chose to attribute her yielding. She went to Harrowgate with Lady Stock; and every day and every hour she became more desirous of appearing fashionable. To this one object all her thoughts were directed. Living in public was to her a new life, and she was continually sensible of her dependence upon the opinion of her more experienced companion. She felt the _awkwardness_ of being surrounded by people with whom she was unacquainted. At first, whenever she appeared she imagined that every body was looking at her, or talking about her, and she was in perpetual apprehension that something in her dress or manners should become the subject of criticism or ridicule: but from this fear she was soon relieved, by the conviction that most people were so occupied with themselves as totally to overlook her. Sometimes indeed she heard the whispered question of “Who is that with Lady Stock?” and the mortifying answer, “I do not know.” However, when Lady Stock had introduced her to some of her acquaintance as a great heiress, the scene changed, and she found herself treated with much _consideration_; though still the fashionable belles took sufficient care to make her sensible of her inferiority. She longed to be upon an equal footing with them. Whilst her mind was in this state, Sir Thomas Stock, one morning, when he was settling some money business with her, observed that she would in another year be of age, and of course would take her affairs into her own hands; but in the mean time it would be necessary to appoint a guardian; and that the choice depended upon herself. She instantly named her friend Mr. Elmour. Sir Thomas insinuated that old Mr. Elmour, though