The struggles that now heaved the breast of Juliet were nearly too potent for her strength. She gasped for breath; she held her hand to her heart; and when, at length, the kind caresses and gentle pleadings of Lady Aurora, brought back her speech, she painfully pronounced, 'Shall I repay goodness so exquisite, by filling with regret the sweet mind that intends me only honour and consolation? Must the charm of such unexpected kindness, even while it penetrates my heart with almost piercing delight, entail, from its resistless persuasion, a misery upon the rest of my days, that may render them a burthen from which I may hourly sigh,--nay pray, to be delivered?' Seized with horrour and astonishment, Lady Aurora exclaimed, 'Oh heaven, no! I must be a monster if I would not rather die, immediately die, than cause you any evil! Miss Ellis, my dear Miss Ellis! forget I have made such a request, and forgive my indiscretion! With all your misfortunes, Miss Ellis, all your so undeserved griefs, you are quite a stranger to sorrow, compared to that which I should experience, if, through me, through my means, you should be exposed to any fresh injury!' 'Angelic goodness!' cried Juliet, deeply affected: 'I blush, I blush to hear you without casting myself entirely into your power, without making you immediate arbitress of my fate! Yet,--since you demand not my confidence for your own satisfaction,--can I know that to spread it beyond yourself,--your generous self!--might involve me in instantaneous earthly destruction, and, voluntarily, suffer your very benevolence to become its instrument? With regard to Lord Denmeath,--to your uncle,--I must say nothing; but with regard to Mrs Howel,--let me conjure your ladyship to consent to my utterly avoiding her, that I may escape the dreadful accusations and reproaches that my cruel situation forbids me to repel. I have no words to paint the terrible impression she has left upon my mind. All that I have borne from others is short of what I have suffered from that lady! The debasing suspicions of Mrs Maple, the taunting tyranny of Mrs Ireton, though they make me blush to owe,--or rather, to earn from them the subsistence without which I know not how to exist; have yet never smote so rudely and so acutely to my inmost heart, as the attack I endured from Mrs Howel! They rob me, indeed, of comfort, of rest, and of liberty--but they do not sever me from Lady Aurora!'