A Simple Story. Mrs. Inchbald

"Once more shew your submission by obeying me a second time to-day. Keep your appointment, and be assured that I shall issue my commands with more circumspection for the future, as I find how strictly they are complied with."

      Miss Milner, the gay, the vain, the dissipated, the haughty Miss Milner, sunk underneath this kindness, and wept with a gentleness and patience, which did not give more surprise than it gave joy to Dorriforth. He was charmed to find her disposition so tractable—prophesied to himself the future success of his guardianship, and her eternal as well as temporal happiness from this specimen.

CHAPTER VIII.

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      Although Dorriforth was the good man that he has been described, there were in his nature shades of evil—there was an obstinacy which he himself, and his friends termed firmness of mind; but had not religion and some opposite virtues weighed heavily in the balance, it would frequently have degenerated into implacable stubbornness.

      The child of a sister once beloved, who married a young officer against her brother's consent, was at the age of three years left an orphan, destitute of all support but from his uncle's generosity: but though Dorriforth maintained, he would never see him. Miss Milner, whose heart was a receptacle for the unfortunate, no sooner was told the melancholy history of Mr. and Mrs. Rushbrook, the parents of the child, than she longed to behold the innocent inheritor of her guardian's resentment, and took Miss Woodley with her to see the boy. He was at a farm house a few miles from town; and his extreme beauty and engaging manners, wanted not the sorrows to which he had been born, to give him farther recommendation to the kindness of her, who had come to visit him. She looked at him with admiration and pity, and having endeared herself to him by the most affectionate words and caresses, on her bidding him farewell, he cried most pitiously to go along with her. Unused at any time to resist temptations, whether to reprehensible, or to laudable actions, she yielded to his supplications, and having overcome a few scruples of Miss Woodley's, determined to take young Rushbrook to town, and present him to his uncle. This idea was no sooner formed than executed. By making a present to the nurse, she readily gained her consent to part with him for a day or two, and the signs of joy denoted by the child on being put into the carriage, repaid her beforehand for every reproof she might receive from her guardian, for the liberty she had taken.

      "Besides," said she to Miss Woodley, who had still her fears, "do you not wish his uncle should have a warmer interest in his care than duty?—it is duty alone which induces Mr. Dorriforth to provide for him; but it is proper that affection should have some share in his benevolence—and how, hereafter, will he be so fit an object of the love which compassion excites, as he is at present?"

      Miss Woodley acquiesced. But before they arrived at their own door it came into Miss Milner's remembrance, that there was a grave sternness in the manners of her guardian when provoked, the recollection of which made her a little apprehensive for what she had done—her friend, who knew him better than she did, was more so. They both became silent as they approached the street where they lived—for Miss Woodley having once represented her fears, and having suppressed them in resignation to Miss Milner's better judgment, would not repeat them—and Miss Milner would not confess they were now troubling her.

      Just, however, as the coach stopped at the door, she had the forecast and the humility to say, "We will not tell Mr. Dorriforth the child is his nephew, unless he should appear fond, and pleased with him, and then I think we may venture without any danger."

      This was agreed; and when Dorriforth entered the room just before dinner, poor Harry Rushbrook was introduced as the son of a lady who frequently visited there. The deception passed—his uncle shook hands with him, and at length highly pleased with his engaging manner, and applicable replies, took him on his knee, and kissed him with affection. Miss Milner could scarce restrain the joy it gave her; but unluckily, Dorriforth said soon after to the child, "And now tell me your name."

      "Harry Rushbrook," replied he, with force and clearness of voice.

      Dorriforth was holding him fondly round the waist as he stood with his feet upon his knees; and at this reply he did not throw him from him—but he removed his hands, which had supported him, so suddenly, that the child, to prevent falling on the floor, threw himself about his uncle's neck. Miss Milner and Miss Woodley turned aside to conceal their tears. "I had like to have been down," cried Harry, fearing no other danger. But his uncle took hold of each hand which had twined around him, and placed him immediately on the ground. The dinner being that instant served, he gave no greater marks of his resentment than calling for his hat, and walking instantly out of the house.

      Miss Milner cried for anger; yet she did not shew less kindness to the object of this vexatious circumstance: she held him in her arms while she sat at table, and repeatedly said to him, (though he had not the sense to thank her) "That she would always be his friend."

      The first emotions of resentment against Dorriforth being passed, she returned with her little charge to the farm house, before it was likely his uncle should come back; another instance of obedience, which Miss Woodley was impatient her guardian should know; she therefore enquired where he was, and sent him a note for the sole purpose of acquainting him with it, offering at the same time an apology for what had happened. He returned in the evening seemingly reconciled, nor was a word mentioned of the incident which had occurred in the former part of the day; yet in his countenance remained a perfect remembrance of it, without one trait of compassion for his helpless nephew.

CHAPTER IX.

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      There are few things so mortifying to a proud spirit as to suffer by immediate comparison—men can hardly bear it, but to women the punishment is intolerable; and Miss Milner now laboured under this humiliation to a degree which gave her no small inquietude.

      Miss Fenton, young, of exquisite beauty, elegant manners, gentle disposition, and discreet conduct, was introduced to Miss Milner's acquaintance by her guardian, and frequently, sometimes inadvertently, held up by him as a pattern for her to follow—for when he did not say this in direct terms, it was insinuated by the warmth of his panegyric on those virtues in which Miss Fenton excelled, and in which his ward was obviously deficient. Conscious of her own inferiority in these subjects of her guardian's praise, Miss Milner, instead of being inspired to emulation, was provoked to envy.

      Not to admire Miss Fenton was impossible—to find one fault with her person or sentiments was equally impossible—and yet to love her was unlikely.

      That serenity of mind which kept her features in a continual placid form, though enchanting at the first glance, upon a second or third, fatigued the sight for want of variety; and to have seen her distorted with rage, convulsed with mirth, or in deep dejection, had been to her advantage. But her superior soul appeared above those emotions, and there was more inducement to worship her as a saint than to love her as a woman. Yet Dorriforth, whose heart was not formed (at least not educated) for love, regarding her in the light of friendship only, beheld her as the most perfect model for her sex. Lord Frederick on first seeing her was struck with her beauty, and Miss Milner apprehended she had introduced a rival; but he had not seen her three times, before he called her "The most insufferable of Heaven's creatures," and vowed there was more charming variation in the plain features of Miss Woodley.

      Miss Milner had a heart affectionate to her own sex, even where she saw them in possession of superior charms; but whether from the spirit of contradiction, from feeling herself more than ordinarily offended by her guardian's praise of this lady, or that there was a reserve in Miss Fenton that did not accord with her own frank and ingenuous disposition, so as to engage her esteem, certain it is that she took infinite satisfaction in hearing her beauty and virtues depreciated or turned into ridicule, particularly if Mr. Dorriforth was present. This was