The time fixed for her visit had expired; but it was renewed at the earnest request of her friends, both old and young. It was impossible, they said, for her to go yet, she had seen nothing of London. Her mother wrote rather anxiously, fearing that her dear Millicent was leading too gay a life, though with such good people: and yet, with a nice instinct, Millicent had not indulged in her letters home in more than a dry and matter-of-fact account of her doings. She had said that the Barringtons saw a deal of company, and that the splendour and luxury that she witnessed was truly wonderful. Her mother hoped that so much grandeur would not spoil her for her own simple, unostentatious life at home. One day Mr. Edmund Barrington told Millicent that he had a treat for her. On the morrow Handel’s “Messiah” was to be performed, and he had taken tickets for his sisters, for her, and for himself. Millicent objected that she was sure her parents would not like her to go, and, therefore, they must please to leave her at home with Mrs. Barrington. “What!” said Edmund, “do you object to _sacred_ music? Can there possibly be anything wrong in listening to music so pure, so edifying, so ennobling? It was a perfect perversion of intellect to object to such a thing. She must go. He would not hear of anything else.” His sisters joined in the assertion, that it would be really high treason against virtue itself not to go. Millicent made a strong resistance, but it was a sense of duty battling with the innate tastes of her nature, and she went. “Good and right as it is,” said Edmund Barrington, “don’t tell your mother about it. She cannot surmount her educational prejudices, and why trouble her?” Millicent was, however, troubled. Charmed as she was by the noble music, which bore her away in a trance-like state to regions of new and lofty pleasure, she could not avoid feeling that it was wrong to conceal anything from her mother. The uneasy feeling hung about her, and came often in the midst of the pleasantest society with a painful start. But there were other influences at work, which, though she did not perceive them, were yet acting upon her. Everywhere Edmund Barrington was at hand to accompany her into society—to ride out with her. To take her to see sights in London, with one or more of his sisters. One evening he told her that he had brought her a trifling present, and put into her hand a case containing a gold bracelet with a diamond clasp of a very beautiful pattern. Millicent was dumb with amazement. Recovering a little her self-possession, she thanked him very earnestly, but said that it was impossible for her to accept it. It was of too great a value as a gift from a friend whose friendship had yet been of so short a duration. Besides, she could never wear it. To her it would be useless. To some other friend of his it might be different.