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After anxiously and with astonishment waiting some minutes, "Why does Miss Ellis thus hesitate?" cried Lord Melbury. "What can I say or do to remove her scruples?"
"I have none, my lord, none! but I have so solemnly been bound to silence! and . ."
"Oh, but you are bound, now, to speech!" cried he, with spirit; "and, to lessen your inquietude, and satisfy your delicacy, I will shew you the way to openness and confidence, by making a disclosure first. Will you, then, have more reliance upon my discretion?"
"You are too,—too good, my lord!" cried Juliet, again brightening up; "but I dream not of such indulgence: 'tis to your benevolence only I apply."
"Oh, but I have a fancy to trust you! Aurora will be delighted that I should have found such a confidant. Yet I have nothing positive,—nothing fixed,—to say, it is but an idea,—a thought,—a kind of distant perspective . . ."
