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Her first impulse was to write to Lady Aurora, and implore her protection; but this wish was soon subdued by an invincible repugnance, to drawing so young a person into any clandestine correspondence.

Yet there was no one else to whom she could apply. Alas! she cried, how wretched a situation!—And yet,—compared with what it might have been!—Ah! let me dwell upon that contrast!—What, then, can make me miserable?

With revived vigour from this reflection, she resolved to assume courage to send in all her accounts, without waiting any longer for the precarious assistance of Miss Arbe. But what was to follow? When all difficulty should be over with respect to others, how was she to exist herself?

Music, though by no means her only accomplishment, was the only one which she dared flatter herself to possess with sufficient knowledge, for the arduous