"To be taken for a thief!--Oh, to what have I exposed myself!" said Miss Warwick.
"Sit down, my dear, now we are in a room where we need not fear interruption--sit down, and don't tremble like an aspen leaf," said Lady Frances Somerset, who saw that at this moment, reproaches would have been equally unnecessary and cruel.
Unused to be treated with judicious kindness, Angelina's heart was deeply touched by it, and she opened her whole mind to Lady Frances, with the frankness of a young person conscious of her own folly, not desirous to apologize or extenuate, but anxious to regain the esteem of a friend.
"To be sure, my dear, it was, as you say, rather foolish to set out in quest of an _unknown friend_," said Lady Frances, after listening to the confessions of Angelina. "And why, after all, was it necessary to have an elopement?"
"Oh, madam, I am sensible of my folly--I had long formed a project of living in a cottage in Wales--and Miss Burrage described Wales to me as a terrestrial paradise."
"Miss Burrage! then why did she not go to paradise along with you?" said Lady Frances.
"I don't know--she was was so much attached to Lady Di. Chillingworth, she said, she could never think of leaving her: she charged me never to mention the cottage scheme to Lady Di., who would only laugh at it. Indeed, Lady Di. was almost always out whilst we were in London, or dressing, or at cards, and I could seldom speak to her, especially about cottages; and I wished for a friend, to whom I could open my whole heart, and whom I could love and esteem, and who should have the same tastes and notions with myself."
"I am sorry that last condition is part of your definition of a friend," said Lady Frances, smiling; "for I will not swear that my notions are the same as yours, but yet I think you would have found me as good a friend as this Araminta of yours. Was it necessary to perfect felicity to have an _unknown friend_?"
"Ah! there was my mistake," said Miss Warwick. "I had read Araminta's writings, and they speak so charmingly of friendship and felicity, that I thought
'Those best can paint them who can feel them most.'"
"No uncommon mistake," said Lady Frances.
"But I am fully sensible of my folly," said Angelina.