I don’t flatter, madam. Don’t call me a flatterer. I am a very sincere girl: indeed 1 am.

I dare say you are; but you raise my vanity, my dear. It is not your fault to tell me what people say of me; but it is mine io be proud of their commend-ations But you were going to tell me what Anne says, on your being so much affected, when she tells you in a hurry that your guardian is come?

Why Anne says, that all those are signs of love.

Foolish creature! And yet so they may: but riot of such love as she means Such a love as she as good as owns she had in her days o Jlutteration, as she whimsically calls them; which, as she explains it, were when she was two or three years older than I am. In the first place, I am very young, you know, madam; a mere girl: and such a simple thing! I never had a mother, nor sister neither; nor a companion of my own sex. Mrs. Lane’s daughters, what were they? They looked upon me as a child, as I was. In the next place, I do love my guardian, that’s true; but with as much reverence, as if he were my father. I never had a thought that had not that deep, that profound reverence for him, as I re-member I had for my father.

But you had not, my dear, any of those flutters, those throbs, that you spoke of, on any returns of your father, after little absences i

Why, no; I can’t say I had. Nor, though I always rejoiced when my guardian came to see me at Mrs. Lane’s, had I, as I remember, any such violent emotions as I have had of late. I don’t know how it is Can you tell me?

Do you not, Lucy, both love and pity this sweet girl? .

My dear Emily, These nre symptoms, I doubt

Symptoms of what, madam? Pray tell me sin-cerely. I wish not to hide a thought of my heart from you.

If encouraged, my dear

What then, madam?

It would be love, I doubt. That sort of love that would make you uneasy

No; that cannot be, surely. Why, madam, at that rate, I should never dare to stand in your presence. Upon my word, I wish no. one in the world, f3 but you, to be Lady Grandison. I have but one fear.

And what’s that?

That my guardian won’t love me so well, when he marries, as he does now.

Are you afraid that the woman he marries will endeavour to narrow so large a heart as his?

No: not if that woman were you. But, forgive my folly! (and she looked down) he would not take my hand so kindly as now he does: he would not look in my face with pleasure, and with pity on my mother’s account, as he does now: he would not call me hh Emily: he would not bespeak every one’s re-gard for his ward.