Before Miss Beaufort quitted her room, various plans were suggested by her anxiety and inexperience, how to release the object of her thoughts. She found no hesitation in believing him poor, and perhaps rendered wretchedly so by the burden of that sick friend, who, she suspected, might be a near relation. At any rate, she resolved that another sun should not pass over her head and shine on him in a prison. Having determined to pay his debts herself, she next thought of how she might manage the affair without discovering the hand whence the assistance came. Had her aunt been well enough to leave the house, she would not have scrupled unfolding to her the recent calamity of Mr. Constantine. But well aware that Miss Dorothy's maidenly nicety would be outraged at a young woman appearing the sole mover in such an affair, she conceived herself obliged to withhold her confidence at present, and to decide on prosecuting the whole transaction alone. In consequence of these meditations, her spirits became less discomposed. Turning towards Miss Dorothy Somerset's apartments, she found the good lady sipping her coffee. "What is this I have just heard, my dear Mary? Williams tells me you have been ill!" Miss Beaufort returned her aunt's gracious inquiry with an affectionate kiss; and informing her that she had only been alarmed by an invention of Miss Euphemia's, begged that the subject might drop, it being merely one out of the many schemes which she believed that young lady had devised to render her visit to London as little pleasant as possible. "Ah!" replied Miss Dorothy, "I hope I shall be well enough to travel in the course of a few days. I can now walk with a stick; and upon my word, I am heartily tired both of Lady Dundas and her daughters." Mary expressed similar sentiments; but as the declaration passed her lips, a sigh almost buried the last word. Go when she would, she must leave Constantine behind, leave him without an expectation of beholding him more--without a hope of penetrating the thick cloud which involved him, and with which he had ever baffled any attempt she had heard to discover his birth or misfortunes. She wept over this refinement on delicacy, and "loved him dearer for his mystery." When the dawn broke next morning, it shone on Miss Beaufort's yet unclosed eyes. Sleep could find no languid faculty in her head whilst her heart was agitated with plans for the relief of Thaddeus. The idea of visiting the coffee-house to which she knew the Misses Dundas directed their letters, and of asking questions about a young and handsome man, made her timidity shrink.